In 1876, the first novel translated by Bindiganavile Venkatacharya from Bengali into Kannada was published. The novel was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s ‘Bhrantivilasa,’ a novelised adaptation of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

The novelty of Bhrantivilasa immediately caught the attention of the Kannada reading public and it was soon prescribed as a textbook by the Madras and Mysore Universities. Encouraged by this recognition, Venkatacharya translated two more of Vidyasagar’s novels — Shakuntala (1882) and Sitavanavasa (1884).

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