G. T Narayana Rao

G.T Narayana Rao (30 June 1926 – 27 June 2008) was a well-known science writer in Kannada and a music critic. He was popularly known as GTN to his large number of students and readers. GTN served as a teacher of Mathematics in various colleges (1949–1968) in Madikeri, Mangalore, Bangalore and Mysore; and during his tenure as a teacher, he was an officer of the rank of the major in the National Cadet Corps.

From 1968, he worked as an editor of the 14-volume Kannada Visvakosa (Kannada Encyclopedia), created and published by the Institute for Kannada Studies, University of Mysore.

GTN was a leading music critic of Mysore, with Karnatak classical music being his focus of interest. He wrote reviews of music concerts for the local eveninger Star of Mysore and The Hindu. He was also known for spotting musical talents of promise and helping them come to the fore.

GTN has written over 30 books in Kannada on a range of subjects, including biographies of Albert Einstein and S. Chandrasekhar, the Nobel laureate astro-physicist. He has also written three books in English.

Karnataka Open University honored GTN with a Hon. D.Litt. in 2008. He received the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award in 2008, and has also been a recipient of other honors including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award, Kannada Sahitya Parishat’s H. Narasimhaiah Award, Malawaad Award instituted by the Karnatak University, Dr Shivarama Karanth Award (2000) from Delhi Karnataka Sangha, Bangalore Gayana Samaja Centenary honor, Kodagu District 5th Literary Conference Chairmanship (2006).

We decided to document his lives and times in his own words. So we did a detailed interview in 2007 at his residence in Mysore. It was simple interview based documentation.