17 Facts About Shivarama Karanth

1.

Shivarama Karanth was the third writer to be decorated with the Jnanpith Award for Kannada, the highest literary honor conferred in India.

2.

Shivaram Karanth was born on 10 October 1902, in Kota near Kundapura in the Udupi district of Karnataka to a Kannada-speaking Smartha Bhramin family.

3.

Shivaram Shivarama Karanth was influenced by Gandhi's principles and took part in Indian Independence movement when he was in college.

4.

Shivarama Karanth canvassed for khadi and swadeshi in Karnataka led by Indian National Congress leader Karnad Sadashiva Rao, for five years till 1927.

5.

Shivarama Karanth began writing in 1924 and soon published his first book, Rashtrageetha Sudhakara, a collection of poems.

6.

Shivarama Karanth was an intellectual and environmentalist who made notable contribution to the art and culture of Karnataka.

7.

Shivarama Karanth is considered one of the most influential novelists in the Kannada language.

8.

Shivarama Karanth wrote two books on Karnataka's ancient stage dance-drama Yakshagana.

9.

Shivarama Karanth was involved in experiments in the technique of printing for some years in the 1930s and 1940s and printed his own novels, but incurred financial losses.

10.

Shivarama Karanth was a painter and was deeply concerned with the issue of nuclear energy and its impact on the environment.

11.

Shivarama Karanth wrote, apart from his forty-seven novels, thirty-one plays, four short story collections, six books of essays and sketches, thirteen books on art, two volumes of poems, nine encyclopedias, and over one hundred articles on various issues.

12.

Shivarama Karanth married Leela Alva, a student in the school that Shivarama Karanth taught dance and directed plays in.

13.

The couple subsequently attracted ridicule from people in the region over their inter-caste marriage; Shivarama Karanth belonged to an orthodox Brahmin community.

14.

Shivarama Karanth was quite well-read, and she dedicated all of her talents to her husband.

15.

Shivarama Karanth was admitted to Kasturba Medical College in Manipal on 2 December 1997 to be treated for viral fever.

16.

Shivarama Karanth suffered from a cardiac respiratory arrest two days later and slipped into a coma.

17.

Many of Shivarama Karanth's novels have been translated into other Indian languages.