Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy

Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy (born 22 September 1954) is a noted Indian speaker, poet and writer supporting the voice of Dalits and unprevilaged communities
. His writings advocates for eradicating caste system, untouchability and against fundamentalism. His works have been translated into various Indian languages, English, Spanish. He has been conferred with Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award.
Early life.
Born on 22 September 1954 in the village Mudnakudu of Chamarajanagar dist. in the state of Karnataka, India in a dalit family. His father was Basavarjaiah and mother Gowramma. He has M.Com. M.A.(Kan). D.Lit., as educational qualifications. He has served as Financial Advisor in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation and Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation.
Works.
Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy's first collection of poetry, "Kondigalu Matthu Mullubeligalu" (Links and barbed fences) published in 1989 brought a new wave of change in otherwise stagnant Kannada Dalit-Bandaya (protest) Poetry and appreciated by critics, writers and poetry lovers. And so far, six collections of poetry have been published. The essence of the poetry is dalit experiences which are empirical in nature and expressed with intensity which attracted discussions and deliberations in the literary circles. Prof. Dharanendra Kurakuri has translated selected poems into Hindi and were published by Amar Prakashan, Kanpur in 2001 under the caption ‘Angar Ki Choti Per’ (Over the mountain of embers)
Prof.Rowena Hill (), a British born Venezuelan poet has translated 47 selected poems into Spanish and English. A Spanish literary magazine from Columbia Arquitrave has published 10 of them in its June 2003 issue. The Spanish version has been later published by the Cultural dept. of Venezuelan Govt., (CONAC) in 2004 under ‘world poetry series’. And the English translation has been published by ‘erbacce press’ Liverpool, UK in 2016. Poems have also been translated into Hebrew Indian vernaculars like Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and Urdu.
As many as 27 poems and a play have been prescribed as curriculum in the language text books of various courses by the Government of Karnataka, Government of Maharashtra, CBSC, New Delhi, and Universities in Karnataka and West Bengal, also in UK. Apart from poetry he has also worked in other genres of literature and brought out collections of short stories, essays, plays and monographs etc.,
Awards and honours.
He has been felicitated with Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 2009 and Karnataka State Rajyotsava Award in 2014 for life time achievement.
List of works.
His contribution to Kannada literature are listed below.