Abhay Sardesai

Vanamala Viswanatha

A translator and academic, Vanamala Viswanatha has taught English language and literature over the past four decades at several premiere institutions in Bengaluru, including Indian Institute of Science, Regional Institute of English, Bangalore University, and Azim Premji University. Vanamala Viswanatha has also served as Honorary Director, Centre for Translation, Sahitya Akademi and as  member, Advisory Committee, National Translation Mission. Vanamala  has translated the works of such important Kannada writers as U R Ananthamurthy, P Lankesh, Tejaswi, Vaidehi, and Sara Aboobakkar.  She has co-translated, with Hans Sjostrom, Ananthmurthy’s Samskara into Swedish (Samskara – rit for en dod man, Ordfront Forlag, 2001) and Torgny Lindgren’s Swedish novel into Kannada (Havina Donku, Sahitya Akademi, 2002). Her translation of The Life of Harishchandra, (Harvard University Press, 2017), the first ever translation of a medieval Kannada classic, in the Murty Classical Library of India Series, is considered a landmark publication.