Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan () (1929—1993) was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan wore many hats as a Indian poet, scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Sanskrit, and English. He published works on both classical and modern variants of these literatures and also argued strongly for giving local, non-standard dialects their due.
He was born into an Iyengar family in Mysore City in 1929. He was educated at D. Bhanumaiah's High School and Maharaja's College, Mysore. He was a fellow of Deccan College, Poona in 1958 - 59 and Fulbright Scholar at Indiana University in 1959 - 62. He was educated in English at the Mysore University and received his Ph.D in Linguistics from Indiana University. Having been a lecturer in English at Quilon and Belgaum he taught at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda for about eight years. In 1962, he joined the University of Chicago teaching in several departments. In 1983, he was appointed the William E. Colvin Professor in the Departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, of Linguistics, and in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and, the same year, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.
As an Indo-American writer Ramanujan had the experience of the native milieu as well as of the foreign milieu. His poems like the "Conventions of Despair" reflected his views on the cultures and conventions of the east and the west.
A. K. Ramanujan died in 1993 as result of adverse reaction to anesthesia during preparation for surgery.
His works include translations from Classical Tamil and Medieval Kannada, such as:
Translations and studies of literature
The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology, 1967
Speaking of Siva, 1973
The Literatures of India. Edited with Edwin Gerow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974
Hymns for the Drowning, 1981
Poems of Love and War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985
Folktales from India, Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages, 1991
"Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?" in India Through Hindu Categories, edited by McKim Marriot, 1990
When God Is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others (with Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman), 1994
A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India, 1997
Poetry, fiction and drama
The Striders. London: Oxford University Press, 1996
Hokkulalli Huvilla, No Lotus in the Navel. Dharwar, 1969
Relations. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1971
Selected Poems. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976
Samskara. (translation of U R Ananthamurthy's novel) Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1976
Mattu Itara Padyagalu and Other Poems. Dharwar, 1977
Second Sight. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986
A.K. Ramanujan's three books of Kannada Poetry, and a novella have been translated into English, and published by Oxford University Press. Poems And A Novella: Translated From Kannada(Hardcover - 2006-03-09)by A. K. Ramanujan (Author), Tonse N. K. Raju (Translator), Shouri Daniels-ramanujan (Translator). This collection has his poetry collections: 1) Hokkulalli Hoovilla (No Flower in the Lotus); 2) Mattu itara kategalU (And Other Poems); and 3) Kuntobille (Hopscotch). The novella in Kannada is titled "Mattobbana Atma Charitre" (Someone Else's Autobiography).