L. S. Sheshagiri Rao (

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

:ಎಲ್. ಎಸ್. ಶೇಷಗಿರಿ ರಾವ್; 16 February 1925 – 20 December 2019), often referred to as LSS, was an Indian writer and academic specializing in

Kannada literature Kannada literature is the Text corpus, corpus of written forms of the Kannada language, a member of the Dravidian language, Dravidian Language family, family spoken mainly in the Indian state of Karnataka and written in the Kannada script. A ...

. He wrote an English-Kannada dictionary that is a standard reference text for students. Rao worked for government colleges before gaining a position at

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univers ...

's English department. He was the first president of the Kannada Book Trust. Rao won the

Kendra Sahitya Academy Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

for his work ''English Sahitya Charitre''. Rao was elected president of the 74th

Kannada Sahitya Sammelana The Kannada Sahitya Sammelana () is the premier gathering of writers, poets and Kannadigas. It is held with the aim of preserving and developing the Kannada language, its literature, art, culture and music. It was started in 1915 by H. V. Nanju ...

. Rao has also won the

Rajyotsava Award The Rajyotsava Prashasti or Rajyotsava Awards, the second highest civilian honor of the Karnataka state of India are conferred annually by the Government of Karnataka, Karnataka Government on the occasion of the establishment of the state on 1 ...

, Masti Award, and the

Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award is an annual literary award given to literary works in Kannada by the Karnataka Sahitya Academy. Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award is given to individual books published in various genres like poetry, novel, short ...

for his work. He died on 20 December 2019 in

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, aged 94.

References

1925 births Kannada-language writers 2019 deaths Academic staff of Bangalore University People from Bangalore Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Kannada {{India-writer-stub