Santeshivara Bhyrappa is a Kannada novelist whose works are not only popular within his home state of Karnataka, but also all over India and in the USA. Bhyrappa is widely regarded as one of modern India's foremost novelists. His novels are unique in terms of theme, structure, and characterization. He has been among the top selling authors of Kannada language. Books written by him and translated to Hindi and Marathi have also been top sellers in the past. He has been awarded with the 20th Saraswati Samman for 2010. He was born on 20 August 1931 in Santeshivara, Hassan district, Karnataka, India. Bhyrappa completed his primary education in Channarayapatna taluk before moving to Mysore where he completed the rest of his education.

Bhyrappa has written several popular novels.He has authored twenty novels in a career spanning four decades. Some of the famous novels like Vamshavruksha, Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, Matadana and Nayi Neralu have been made into films and also have bagged major awards. Vamshavruksha has received Kannada Sahitya Academy Award in 1966 and Daatu has received both Kannada and Kendra Sahitya Academy awards in the year 1975. Parva has been the most discussed and applauded among all of his novels. It narrates the social structure, values and the mystery of mortality in the epoch of Mahabharata very effectively. Bhyrappa reconstructed Mahabharatha from sociological and anthropological angle, through metaphors in this novel. In 2016, he received the India's fourth highest civilian award Padma Shri.