Senior journalist, writer and translator G.N. Ranganatha Rao, 81, passed away in Bengaluru on October 9. He was suffering from age-related ailments and is survived by a son and a daughter.
Born in 1942, Ranganatha Rao studied journalism and started his career as a sub-editor with Samyukta Karnataka in the early 1960s. He had long stints with Samyukta Karnataka and Prajavani groups. He was not only the executive editor of Prajavani for a long time but also edited the magazines Sudha, Mayura and Kasturi during his career.
After retirement, he wrote several books on journalism in the Kannada language, including an exhaustive history of Kannada journalism, which have become resources for journalism students across Karnataka. He taught journalism for decades and played a key role in designing journalism curriculum in the State. He was a recipient of the Khadri Shamanna Award for Journalism in 2009, the highest award for a journalist instituted in Karnataka. He was also awarded the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award in 2018.
A multi-faceted personality with a deep flair for literature, he also wrote several short stories, novels, satires, criticism and poetry under the pen-name ‘Navaranga’. However, he made his mark as a translator. He translated the works of William Shakespeare, Khalil Gibran, D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka and O. Henry into Kannada. He recently translated multiple works of city-based historian Ramachandra Guha into Kannada.
