Kanaka Ha Ma is a noted

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

poet and columnist. She has also been active as a theatre actor and a freelance journalist for Kannada publications.

Family

Kanaka hails from Halikere,

Shimoga Shimoga, officially Shivamogga, is a city and the district headquarters of Shimoga district in the Karnataka state of India. The city lies on the banks of the Tunga River. Being the gateway for the hilly region of the Western Ghats, the city ...

district in Karnataka. She is married to P. C. Vishnunath and the couple have one child.

Work

Three collections of her poetry have been published by Akshara Prakashana which is run by

Ninasam Ninasam (Kannada: ನೀನಾಸಂ) is a cultural organisation located in the village of Heggodu in Sagara, India, Sagar Taluk of the Shivamogga district in the state of Karnataka, India. Ninasam (also spelt as Neenasam) is the short form of S ...

. She also translated noted

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

poet,

Javed Akhtar Javed Akhtar (born 1945) is an Indian screenwriter, lyricist and poet. Known for his work in Hindi cinema, he has won five National Film Awards, and received the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2007, two of India's highest civili ...

's book Tarkash to Kannada. Her poems are featured on Poetry International Rotterdam and have been translated into English and French. Kanaka also used to write columns for Kannada publications including

Lankesh Patrike ''Lankesh Patrike'' is an Indian vernacular weekly published in Kannada language from Bangalore, Karnataka. The weekly newspaper was started by P. Lankesh in 1980 on the lines of ''Harijan'', a newspaper published by Mahatma Gandhi. The weekl ...

and Kannada daily

Udayavani ''Udayavani'', launched in January 1970 by T. Mohandas Pai and T. Satish U Pai, is a Kannada daily published by Manipal Media Network Ltd. (MMNL). With editions from Manipal, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hubballi, Davanagere, and Gulbarga, it reaches ...

. While working with SPARROW ( Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women) she translated poems and interviews of Urdu, Marathi and Kannada writers and edited books on them. She is a founder member and Director of PAMPA (People for Performing Arts and More) which has organized the SIWE (South Indian Writers Ensemble) at

Chengannur Chengannur () is a Municipalities of Kerala, municipalityhttps://lsgkerala.gov.in/system/files/2017-10/localbodies.pdf in the Alappuzha district of Kerala, India. It is located south east of the district headquarters in Alappuzha and about ...

for the last 3 years. In November 1997, she attended the International Poetry Biennale at Ivry Sur Seine, France along with other well known poets like

Kanimozhi Kanimozhi Karunanidhi (born 5 January 1968) is an Indian politician, poet and journalist. She is a Member of Parliament, representing Thoothukkudi constituency in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament of India. She was also a former ...

and

Bei Dao Bei Dao (, born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of the Chinese-American writer Zhao Zhenkai (). Among the most acclaimed Chinese-language poets of his generation, he is often regarded as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In addition ...

Selected publications

* Holebagilu (The River Gate,1993) * Papanashini (The Destroyer of Sins, 1997) * Arabi emba kadalu (The Arabian Sea, 2006) * Battalike (Tarkash, 2003)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ha Ma, Kanaka 1964 births Living people 20th-century Indian poets 21st-century Indian poets 20th-century Indian journalists 21st-century Indian journalists Indian columnists Indian women poets Indian women columnists Indian women journalists