Kannada language novel writer Late Taluku Ramaswami Subba Rao (ತಳುಕು ರಾಮಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಸುಬ್ಬ ರಾವ್). He is considered as a harbinger of the Navya movement of Kannada literature.
TaRaSu was initially influenced by the Pragatisheela writings of the Kannada scholar A. N. Krishna Rao. Hence, his initial writings belong to the pragatisheela style and contain novels like Purushavatara and Munjavininda Munjavu. These writings mainly deal with the issues faced by the downtrodden and the lower caste society. Occasionally, he also came up with novels that were not of this genre, like Chandavalliya Thota which was based on a Gandhian theme of rural life in India. Some of his most celebrated novels include Masanada Hoovu, which talks about the plight of prostitutes and Hamsa Geethe, which talks about the life of a musician in the context of Chitradurga being passed from the hands of the Palaiyakkarars to Hyder Ali. Both of these novels have been made into films in Kannada. Hamsageethe was chosen as a text book for graduation classes and a Hindi film, Basant Bahar, was based on it.
When the Navya (modernist) movement of Kannada literature was in its infancy, TaRaSu contributed to its growth by coming up with various books belonging to this genre, like his collection of short stories, Girimalligeya Nandanadalli which shows the confusion during the shift from progressive to modernist form of literature. TaRaSu has also written many historical novels, the most famous being Durgaastamana (fall of the Durga fort), which won him the Sahitya Akademi award in 1985.
