Krishna Rao

Born:9 May 1908

Died:8 July 1971

He popularly known as Anakru, was an Indian writer.
He is one of the best-known writers in the Kannada language and was popularly known as Kadambari Sarvabhouma (lit, “King of Novels”).
The inception of the Pragatishila (“progressive”) movement in Kannada literature is credited to him.
He received an honorary doctorate from the Mysore University and the Karnataka state Sahitya Akademi award.
Starting with his first novel, Jeevanayathre (“Journey of life”), he wrote for about 40 years and authored more than a hundred novels.
He was a prolific writer and his literary output exceeded eighty thousand pages.
When he started writing, the Navodaya form of Kannada literature was in vogue.
He rejected this form because he felt such writings were a creation of aesthetes and did not reflect the disturbing realities of life.
He came up with themes that formed a new movement in itself, called Pragatishila (“progressive”).
He saw literature as an instrument of social change.
Influenced by him, other promising writers such as Ta Ra Su (T.R. Subba Rao), Basavaraj Kattimani and Anupama Niranjana wrote novels that belonged to the Pragatishila genre.