A. K. Ramanujan

For the mathematician , see Srinivasa Ramanujan

Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan [Kannada: ಅತ್ತಿಪೇಟೆ ಕೃಷ್ಣಸ್ವಾಮಿ ರಾಮಾನುಜನ್ ](1929-1993) was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan wore many hats as a scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Sanskrit, and English. He published works on both classical and modern variants of these literatures and also argued strongly for giving local, non-standard dialects their due.

He was born into an Iyengar family in Mysore City in 1929. He was educated in English at the Mysore University and at Indiana University. In 1962, he joined the University of Chicago and later taught there in several departments. In 1983, he was appointed the William E. Colvin Professor in the Departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, of Linguistics, and in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and, the same year, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

As an Indo American writer Ramanujan had the experience of the native milieu as well as of the foreign milieu. His poems like the "Conventions of Despair" reflected his views on the cultures and conventions of the east and the west.

A. K. Ramanujan died in 1993 as result of adverse reaction to anesthesia during preparation for surgery.

Selected publications

His works include translations from Classical Tamil and Medieval Kannada, such as:

Translations and studies of literature

• The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology, 1967
• Speaking of Siva, 1973
• The Literatures of India. Edited with Edwin Gerow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974
• Hymns for the Drowning, 1981
• A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India
• Poems of Love and War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985
• Folktales from India, Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages, 1991
• "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?" in India Through Hindu Categories, edited by McKim Marriot, 1990

Poetry, fiction and drama

• The Striders. London: Oxford University Press, 1996
• Hokkulalli Huvilla, No Lotus in the Navel. Dharwar, 1969
• Relations. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1971
• Selected Poems. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976
• Samskara. (translation of U R Ananthamurthy's novel) Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976
• Mattu Itara Padyagalu and Other Poems. Dharwar, 1977
• Second Sight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986

External links

• Attipati Krishnasami Ramanujan (addhe), Candy Wagoner
• A.K. Ramanjuan, oldpoetry.com

A.K. Ramanujan's three books of Kannada Poetry, and a novella have been translated into English, and published by Oxford University Press. Poems And A Novella: Translated From Kannada(Hardcover - 2006-03-09)by A. K. Ramanujan (Author), Tonse N. K. Raju (Translator), Shouri Daniels-ramanujan (Translator). This collection has his poetry collections: 1) Hokkulalli Hoovilla (No Flower in the Lotus); 2) Mattu itara kategalU (And Other Poems); and 3) Kuntobille (Hopscotch). The novella in Kannada is titled "Mattobbana Atma Charitre" (Someone Else's Autobiography).