Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy

Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy (1954) is a well known Kannada Poet, hailing from Mudnakudu village in Chamarajanagar District of Karnataka S. India. He has two post graduate degrees viz., M.Com. And M.A. (Kan), with a D.Lit. in Social Sciences. He was a Finance Executive by profession and retired as Director (Finance) & Financial Advisor from Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation in March 2014. Poetry is his passion but he has worked in other genres of literature as well, besides having a wide range of interests in culture, social work and theatre. He has brought out 40 books so far which include eight collections of poetry, seven of essays, three plays and two collections of short stories.

As a prominent Dalit voice, he has established a niche for himself through his empirical imaging in mellowed tone. His works have been translated into other Indian vernaculars and widely published. Translations of the selected poems in English have been published in the literary journals like Indian Literature, The New Quest, Little Magazine and e-magazine Muse India as well as journals in abroad like Arquitrave-in Spanish (Columbia) Helicon- in Hebrew (Israel) in Driesch Verlag (Austria) and so on.

He has attended many International Poetry Festivals & Literary Conferences and recited poems, presented papers. To name a few, Andes University, Merida, Venezuela, Granada Poetry Conference, Nicaragua, Helicon Poetry Festival, Tel-Aviv, Israel, AHRC funded Network in the University of East Anglia at Norwich, England and Poetry workshops and public readings at Nottingham during May 12 - 25, 2016 hosted by the Centre for Postcolonial Studies at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

Rowena Hill, an English born Poet and translator from Venezuela has rendered his selected poems into Spanish and English which have been published as ‘Poemas: Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy’ and “Before It Rains again” respectively. He is acclaimed to be the first poet from Kannada lore to get published with an anthology in Spanish. He has directed two plays for theatre groups one being ‘Bahurupi’ for the National Repertoire, Rangayana, Mysore. He has also played a role in a documentary film ‘Maayaa loka’

He has been felicitated in and outside the country and graced with many awards including Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 2009 and Karnataka State Award in 2014 for life time achievement.