Maithreyi Karnoor
Maithreyi Karnoor (b.1983) is a poet and writer, and translates into English literature from Kannada. She was born in Hubli and raised in Mudhol. Growing up in this small town in the northern part of Karnataka known for its multilingual (Kannada, Marathi, and Urdu) culture has informed and influenced her sensibilities as a translator. She has a master’s degree in literary and cultural studies from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.
Her debut novel Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends published in 2021 experiments with structure and uses poetry within prose as a narrative tool. Her translation of a collection of plays by H S Shivaprakash was published by Sahitya Akademi. These plays are musicals and the experience of translating songs for the stage has helped her hone a sensibility for poetry translation in which music is as pertinent as meaning. A Handful of Sesame, her translation of the Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Kannada novel Halla Bantu Halla by Shrinivas Vaidya has won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati Prize for translation and was shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize.
Her poems, Degrees and Jaani were shortlisted for the The Montreal International Poetry Prize in 2017 and 2020 respectively. Her translations, poems, reviews, essays, and short fiction have appeared in AGNI, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Deccan Herald, Scroll, The Wire, Mint Lounge, Muse India, Businessline and Joao Roque Literary Magazine.
She is currently translating Tejo Tungabhadra, a novel set in 15th C Portugal and India, by the Kannada author Vasudhendra. She is also writing a collection of short stories, and working to get her first collection of poetry published.
Read her essays on translation in Muse India and Scroll.
Read reviews of her novel and interviews in Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle and The Indian Express.