Chandrashekhara Kambara

He has been conferred with many prestigious awards including the Padma Bhushan in 2021, Jnanpith Award in 2011 for the year 2010, Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Shri by Government of India, Kabir Samman, Kalidas Samman and Pampa Award. After his retirement, Kambara was nominated as the Member of Karnataka Legislative Council, to which he made significant contributions through his interventions.

He has been elected as the chairman of Sahitya Academy on 12 February 2018.

Kambara received the eighth Jnanpith Award for the Kannada language, the highest literary honour conferred in India, in September 2011 for the year 2010. The prestigious award which was instituted in 1961, carries a cheque for ₹ 750,000, a citation and a bronze replica of goddess Vagdevi. The Chief Minister of Karnataka, D. V. Sadananda Gowda was among the many dignitaries who wished him well on the occasion of receiving this award. At a felicitation ceremony held a week after winning the award, the Government of Karnataka announced that it will reprint all works of Kambara, including his plays and make them available at all government school libraries. His works will also be translated to different languages. A drama festival featuring his plays will be staged to honour the laureate.

He served as the chairman of National School of Drama Society, New Delhi from 1996 to 2000 and as the president of Karnataka Nataka Academy from 1980 to 1983. He started using north Karnataka dialect of Kannada in his poems and plays which is not very common in Kannada literature.

Kambara has to his credit 25 plays, 11 anthologies of poems, 5 novels, 16 research works and several scholarly write-ups on folk theatre, literature and education. Some of his popular plays include "Jokumaraswamy", "Jayasidnayaka", "Kadu Kudure", "Nayi Kathe", "Mahamayi", "Harakeya Kuri" and others. He was conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991 for another popular play Sirisampige.

Many of his works have been translated to English and several other Indian languages. The play Jokumaraswamy has been translated to English (Seagull Books, Calcutta in 1989), Marathi (Abholi Prakashan, Solhapur in 2000), Hindi (Vidya Prakashan Mandir, New Delhi in 1985), Telugu (Mudrika Printers, Kurnool in 1993), Tamil, Punjabi and Malayalam among others. The Sahitya Akademi Award-winning play Sirisampige has been translated to English (Seagull Books) and to Tamil, Hindi, Marathi and Rajasthani by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. His novel "Singarevva Mattu Aramane" translated as Kulothe Chingaramma, to Malayalam by C Raghavan, is one of his works that has become popular in Kerala.

His Saavirada Neralu won the "Ashan Award" (Kerala) as the best collection of poems in 1982. He won the K.V. Shankare Gowda Award for Theatre in 1990. He is the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, New Delhi, for playwrighting in the year 1983 and the Sahitya Akademi Award, New Delhi, for the play Siri Sampige in 1991.

Apart from his literary career, Kambara has been associated with direction of feature films. His directorial work in many movies on the plays scripted by him; he has directed films such as Karimayi, Sangeeta and Kadu Kudare. Jeeke Maastara Pranaya Prasanga. Two of his plays which have been made into television series. His contributions include many documentaries for the Government of Karnataka and Government of India. His "Kaadu Kudure" entered into the Indian Panorama and won the National Award. His film "Sangeeta" won the Best Feature Film State Award in the year 1981. He has also adopted his play G.K. Maastarara Pranaya Prasanga for television.

Five of his books have been awarded by the Karnataka Sahitya Academy. His well-known play Jokumaraswamy has won the "Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya Award" of Natya Sangh as the "Best Play of the Year" in India in the year 1975. Another popular play Jaisidanayaka won the Vardhamaana Prashasti as the "Best Book of the Year" – 1975 in Karnataka.

In his lengthy narrative poem Helatena Kela ("Listen, I will tell you") in the early 1960s, Kambara introduced some of the recurring themes which he would often return to in his later works. Themes of tradition and modernity, crises of feudalism, native identities, colonialism, march of history, sex, loss of faith, the death of God and several related themes explored later in his plays, novels and poetry had found metaphorical expression in the narrative poem. The eponymous, long narrative poem has the musicality and rhythm of the Lavani form and uses rich earthy imagery.

Chandrashekhara Kambara (Kannada: ಚಂದ್ರಶೇಖರ ಕಂಬಾರ; born 2 January 1937) is a prominent Indian poet, playwright, folklorist, film director in Kannada language and the founder-vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi also president of the Sahitya Akademi, country's premier literary institution, after Vinayak Krishna Gokak (1983) and U.R. Ananthamurthy (1993). He is known for effective adaptation of the North Karnataka dialect of the Kannada language in his plays, and poems, in a similar style as in the works of D.R. Bendre.