Chandan Gowda holds the esteemed position of Ramakrishna Hegde Chair Professor of Decentralization and Development at the Institute for Social and Economic Change in Bengaluru. With a focus on literature and socio-political thought, he has curated significant works, including “Theatres of Democracy: Selected Essays of Shiv Visvanathan” (2016), “The Way I See It: A Gauri Lankesh Reader” (2018), which has been translated into Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and Tamil, and “A Life in the World” (2019), featuring autobiographical interviews with UR Ananthamurthy.
Gowda’s translation prowess is evident in his shortlisted work, UR Ananthamurthy’s novella “Bara” (2016), nominated for the Crossword Book Award for Translations in 2017. Currently, he has concluded a book exploring the origins of development thought in colonial India, focusing on the old Mysore state. Additionally, he is actively engaged in co-translating and editing Purnachandra Tejasvi’s short fiction anthology “Daredevil Mustafa” and “The Greatest Kannada Short Stories Ever Told,” while co-editing “The Rammanohar Lohia Reader.”