U. R. Ananthamurthy was an integral part of the Navya Movement of Kannada literature. The Navya movement, or the “New” movement, came about in the 1950s, following the “Pragathishila” or the Progressives. It was Kannada literature’s own modernist movement, and its writers were clearly influenced by the New Criticism developing in the West. The writers of the Navya movement were also critics themselves (Rao 78). They did not see themselves, however, as being superior than others in society. These writers were aware of responsibility as a citizen of the very society they wrote about.

In an interview with Rajiv Mehrotra, Ananthamurthy explains that the Navya movement came about as a sort of seeking; it “began with doubting the language of rhetoric, of verbalization itself”. Along with V. K. Gokak’s poetry collection Navya Kavitegalu (Modern Poems, 1950)  and Gopalakrishna Adiga’s Nadedu Banda Dari (“The Path Traversed”, 1952), Ananthamurthy’s Samskara (1966) is considered an essential text of the Navya movement. Watch the interview below to learn more about Ananthamurthy’s views on the Navya movement.

 

References:

Rao, L. S. Sheshagiri. “Trends in Literary Criticism in Kannada.” Indian Literature, vol. 20, no. 2, 1977, pp. 78–83. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24157294.