U. R. Ananthamurthy (1932–2014), writer, teacher, literary critic, and public intellectual, was born in Shivamogga district
in Karnataka. In 1965, his debut novel, Samskara, took the literary world by storm with its unflinching portrayal of the rigid
orthodoxy in Brahmin society. Since then, it has become a landmark novel of the modernist, or Navya, movement of the 1950s
and 1960s in Kannada literature. In a career that spanned more than five decades, Ananthamurthy wrote five novels, several
collections of short stories, poetry, and essays, a play, and an autobiography. He received the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest
literary honour, in 1994, and was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013.
The Essential U. R. Ananthamurthy is a five-part compendium of select fictional and non-fictional works, poetry, and
autobiographical writings from one of India’s most illustrious and outspoken writers. The section ‘Novels’ portrays characters in
conflict with tradition, idealism, and modernity in a rapidly changing independent India through excerpts from powerful novels such as Samskara, Bharathipura, Avasthe, and Bhava. ‘Poetry’ presents five evocative poems on the themes of power and politics.
‘Short Stories’ highlights the chief themes that preoccupied Ananthamurthy—the constraints of the traditional order, the cultural dominance of the West, the sinister workings of power, and the creativity of political dissent. ‘Essays and Speeches’ captures the range and depth of Ananthamurthy’s democratic imagination through his writings on cultural identity and literature, community and creativity,inguistic and nationalist politics, and on figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Manoharohia. And, the final section, ‘Memoirs’, gathers Ananthamurthy’s memories of family, friendships, work, and travel from the different phases of hisife.
The Essential U. R. Ananthamurthy offers a rich glimpse into the mind of one of modern India’s most profound writers and thinkers and demonstrates why Ananthamurthy’s works will endure for generations to come.