K. K. Gangadharan

Biography K. K. Gangadharan was born on 10 March 1949, in Pathanadukka in present-day Kasaragod district of Kerala. Kasaragod district was not formed at that time. When he was still a child, his family migrated to the village of Kabbinasetuve in Kodagu district. He received his education at a Kannada medium school in Somwarpet, Kodagu.

Gangadharan, who worked as an extra-departmental staff member in the Indian postal department for a short period, served at Kothari Coffee Curing Works in Hassan from 1970 to 1973. He has also served as a postal employees' union representative, while in the RMS service. He had been on treatment for liver and kidney disease for some time. This was published in five books. His love for Madhavikutty's stories and the interest in them among Kannada readers motivated him to translate so many of her stories.

Gangadharan also translated stories by prominent Malayalam writers such as Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, M. T. Vasudevan Nair, T. Padmanabhan, Punathil Kunjabdulla, Malayattoor Ramakrishnan, U. K. Kumaran, etc. The translation of Prabhakaran Pazhassi's story Bharameriya Pezhs is included in the Kannada medium ninth class textbook of Kerala.

Awards and honors Gangadharan received the Government of Karnataka's Kuvempu Bhasha Bharathi Pradhikara Award in 2010 and 2017. In March 2024, he received the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize for Kannada.