Sudhakaran Ramanthali

Born in the village of Ramanthali near Payyanur in Kannur district, Sudhakaran completed his primary education in a government Malayalam medium school in his native place.[1] After his higher education in Mysore, he joined Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore.[1]

He was the main person behind the early Bangalore-based newspaper called Bangalore Nadam.[1] A good speaker, and an organiser of many literary events in Bangalore, Sudhakaran is also a regular contributor to the socio-cultural societies of Bangalore and is a regular guest at important literary events in Kerala.[1]

Sudhakaran was not only a writer but also a social activist from a young age. At the age of 20, he joined Hindustan Aeronautics Limited as a technician and joined the Hindustan Aeronautics Employees Association.[3] He later served as a leader of the association for many years. During his tenure at HAL, the company has a Workers' Education class. When the opportunity arose to study English or Kannada, Sudhakaran chose to study Kannada.[4] He started learning Kannada after deciding for himself that Kannada, the state language, should be used to address the workers.[3] His first teacher of Kannada was RN Chandrasekhar, a colleague at HAL, who later became a well-known writer and a prominent leader of the Kannada movement.[3] After work, Chandrasekhar spent hours in the factory colony teaching him literature and discussing literature, sociology, and politics.

Sudhakaran has worked as the coordinator and editor at Kanaka Dasa Study research center at Bangalore and was member of several projects of the English Regional Institute.[5] He also served as the President of the Bengaluru Kairali Arts Committee and Kairali Nilayam Schools.[6]

Before starting translations, Sudhakaran Ramanthali has authored three novels, one screenplay and a collection of short stories. His first published work was Ramapurathinte Katha published in 1983.

At the end of an interview with Chandrasekhara Kampara, Sudhakaran was given five books by him and asked if he could translate them into Malayalam.[3] Until then he had not translated any books into Malayalam and that is how he came to translate literature. He first translated Kambara's short novel called GK Mastarude Pranayakalam.[3] But it was published later only. Jokumaraswamy, the first published work, was published in 2013.[3] After that he has translated 27 works by eminent Kannada writers into Malayalam.[2]