A.K. Ramanujan was a poet, translator, folklorist, and scholar whose work transformed the study of South Asian literature in the United States. During a distinguished career at the University of Chicago, he introduced generations of American students to classical Tamil, Kannada, and Sanskrit texts through acclaimed translations and literary criticism. His scholarship reshaped the fields of comparative literature, folklore, linguistics, and religious studies, establishing South Asian literary traditions as an essential part of the American academy. In 1983, he was given the MacArthur Prize Fellowship (also known as the “Genius Grant”).
