P. Lankesh, Poornachandra Tejaswi: Two greats of Kannada literature, found in translation

More recently, major works by foundational Kannada writers have begun to appear in English, shaping a new conversation around regional literature and its many registers. Bride in the Hills, Vanamala Viswanatha’s translation of Kuvempu’s sprawling novel Malegalalli Madumagalu, is one such effort. So too are The Sour Mango Tree: Selected Works, a collection of writings by P. Lankesh, and Mayaloka, a translation of Poornachandra Tejaswi’s work by Krishna Murthy Chandar. The former is published by Penguin Random House; the latter by Ratna Books.

Both Lankesh and Tejaswi possess a distinct voice and have had an immense impact on both Kannada and non-Kannada readers. Lankesh, with his sharp irreverence, offered a critique of social and political life that remains urgent. Tejaswi, known for his deep curiosity and engagement with science, nature, and society, has inspired a generation of readers and writers in Kannada. Their work, now finding new readers in translation, carries the texture of a region’s moral and imaginative concerns — rendered in a language not their own, yet still unmistakably theirs.

When Stone Melts

In 2004, P. Lankesh’s Kallu Karaguva Samaya Mattu Itara Kathegalu, an anthology of short stories which won the Sahitya Academy Award, was translated into English as When Stone Melts and Other Stories. Among the translators were S Bageshree, Basavaraj Urs, OL Nagabhushanaswamy, Padma Ramachandra Sharma, HS Raghavendra Rao, S R Ramakrishna, B C Ramachandra Sharma, Sherry Simon, Sucheta Pai Javali and KV Tirumalesh. The book was edited by Vanamala Viswanatha.

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H S Komalesha translated Lankesh’s play Sankranti (Summer Solstice) into English. The play is about the life of Basavanna, a twelfth-century thinker who explored the dialectic between enlightenment and liberation. Girish Karnad wrote the play Taledanda (1990), which also explores a similar theme. Whereas Lankesh’s concerns are the social impact of revolution, for Karnad, caste relationships form a substratum of revolution.

Dark Earth

Kuvempu Bhasha Bharathi Pradhikara brought out Dark Earth: A Lankesh Reader, edited by Professor Nataraj Huliyar, in 2019. It is a large selection of Lankesh’s writings, spanning more than 10,000 pages. The title is chosen from the starting line of the poem Avva (Mother): ‘My mother, Fertile dark earth’.

Penguin Random House’s most recent offering of Lankesh’s The Sour Mango Tree (Huli Mavina Mara) is also edited by Nataraj Huliyar, writer and close associate of P Lankesh. It features excerpts from Lankesh’s autobiography Huli Mavina Mara and offers a glimpse into the mind of the maverick author. “Twenty-five years after Lankesh’s death, this volume enables non-Kannadiga readers to appreciate the significance of his legacy,” says Huliyar.

Multifaceted Lankesh

Palyada Lankeshappa, popularly known as P. Lankesh, was an author, journalist, film director, poet and translator. His oeuvre includes essays, plays, novels, and stories — works which are available as physical books, ebooks and audiobooks.

Sour Mango Tree is a 350-page volume in five sections: Lankesh on Lankesh, fiction, prose, poetry, drama and works of translation, including one by Lankesh’s daughter Kavitha Lankesh. Among the other translators are Susan Daniel, Sadananda R, Rishikesh Bahadur Desai, K M Srinivasa Gowda, Suman Priya Mendonca, S N Sridhar, Shoyinka H N and others.

Lankesh, a Lohiaite, inspired a new generation of writers in Kannada. He translated classic literature from around the world. D R Nagaraj, one of India’s great intellectuals, described Lankesh as the “genius of the 20th century”. According to Vanamala Viswanatha, “Lankesh’s plays, including the translation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Antigone, transformed the very ethos of Kannada theatre. His short stories explored the human potential for good and evil with a radar-beam precision unknown in the history of Kannada short fiction. He combined the passion and intensity of Navya (modernist) writings with the stamina and variety of Navodaya (categorisation of writings of writers who wrote earlier in the century). Unlike his contemporaries like Girish Karnad, who used history and myth, or U R Ananthamurthy, who worked through a rigorous engagement with the intellectual, Lankesh gives himself up entirely to an exploration of the here and now against the touchstone of daily living, in order to say what he wants to.”

Criteria for translation

On why he felt the need to translate Lankesh, Professor Nataraj Huliyar told The Federal: “Lankesh is undoubtedly a world-class modern writer. He is a rare visionary from whom writers across the world have things to learn. I have always felt that his prose, especially Teeke Tippani (Criticisms and Notes), serves as an excellent model for young writers with a liberal outlook. I realised the importance of taking Lankesh to non-Kannadiga readers.”

On how he went about selecting translators for the project, Nataraj said: “I did not need to look far for translators. Most of them are my friends. They are adept in Kannada, are familiar with Lankesh’s works and have already worked in the field. Some pieces had already been translated by senior writers like Ramachandra Sharma.”

Translating Tejaswi’s Mayaloka

Mayaloka is Tejaswi’s last novel. On the difficulties encountered in translating the work, Chandar says: “The most daunting task was Tejaswi’s eye for the comic. It oscillates between the situational and the idiosyncratic tendencies of the characters, which Tejaswi brings to life in his narrative. Next were the culture-specific words that come into play in his works. The rural setting made the task much more challenging. While many words have been retained with a brief gloss within the text, some, which were not particularly specific, have been replaced with equivalent English words.”

Chandar has previously translated Uriya Nalage, a collection of essays by literary critic and playwright Kirthinatha Kurtakoti. Translated as Flaming Tongue, the book received the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award for 1995 and recognition from the Karnataka Sahitya Academy in 2010. Also among the challenging literary works taken up by Chandar for translation is K.V. Subbanna’s Kavirajamarga and the Kannada World and Sridhar Balagar’s Aadukala.

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On why he chose Mayaloka for translation, Chandar says: “My Guru, A K Ramanujan, had enjoined me to translate only when I am unable to write anything of my own! For 30 or more years, I have pursued the path of creative writing in Kannada. I stuck to the advice of my guru. But Tejaswi’s Mayaloka has captivated me. The moment I finished reading it, I decided to translate it.”

Modernist work

Tejaswi began writing when the modernist movement was making inroads in Kannada. His early works, Yamala Prashne (1964) and Swaroopa (1966), are examples of themes and techniques associated with this movement. His preoccupations with modernism are tellingly expressed in Niguda Manushyaru (Mysterious Humans, 1976) and Carvalho (1980). It is with Abachurina Post Office (1973) that Tejaswi breaks away and heads in the direction of a socially oriented philosophy, a new perspective that shines through in the Chidambara Rahasya (Cosmic Mystery), and heralds a new type of novel in Kannada literature.

U R Ananthamurthy saw in Tejaswi a curiosity about everything — plants, trees, forests, birds, and human beings. “Till he started writing, we wrote about characters who were just like us, their pleasures, their sorrows. In his initial years of writing, he too wrote in the same way. Later, he left; he didn’t want such writing. He started writing differently. Because of this, he started seeing people of different kinds, people whom we did not take cognisance of. They were neither from the cities, nor were they completely rural. They belonged to a new space, the rural-urban world. We had not noticed this at all. This is not seen either in Karanth or Kuvempu. This mofussil town came to the Kannada literary landscape for the first time through Tejaswi. A town such as Mudigere, its politics, corruption, the country there in… his human world is as strange as his animal world.”

Prefacing the original work, Tejaswi had said: “Four decades ago, while writing a Foreword to the collection of short stories, Abachurina Post Office, I had advocated the need to explore new vistas to face the challenges of the challenging times and circumstances. Now, on the threshold of the 21st century, I am reminded of my own words. The cascade of changes taking place right in front of us should direct our attention to a new vocabulary and new means of expression which are required to explore the undiscovered horizons of the world.”

Tejaswi referred to the sketches and line drawings included in the text of Mayaloka to say that they were not incidental to the book. “Neither are they intentional even if they appear so. It is a collage-like work of art. The images of the text and the visuals intersperse to produce a Mayaloka, a word of magic, of illusion. I cannot say anything more as it is an extremely subtle and invisible communicative act.”

The translations of Lankesh and Tejaswi more than make canonical Kannada literature accessible — they open a door to the cultural, intellectual, and emotional rhythms of a language that has long thrived outside the national mainstream. For non-Kannada readers, these works offer an entry into a literary tradition shaped by dissent and curiosity. As their voices travel across linguistic borders, they carry with them not just stories, but a way of seeing — distinct, resonant, and urgently relevant.