About Tonse

Tonse Narayana Krishna Raju.

I am a pediatrician and neonatologist with expertise in caring for newborn babies. After 30 years of service at the University of Illinois, I retired as a professor in 2003. I then joined the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to work as a physician-scientist.

As an academician, I have authored over 200 scientific articles and more than two dozen chapters in medical textbooks. I have also published five books of fiction, four of which are in Kannada, my mother tongue, a classical Dravidian language from South India. The Kannada books include two short story collections, a novella, and a translation of the English version of the Japanese novel, Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata. My 5th book of fiction is an English translation of three collections of poems and a novella by the famous Indian writer A.K. Ramanujan. All of my fiction books have received critical acclaim. 

I am particularly fond of teaching the history of medicine to medical students and writing articles for the general reader. My writings on this topic have appeared in professional medical journals and textbooks, medical college magazines and newsletters, and in popular print media in Kannada as well as in English.

I cordially welcome you to my website to read about my books and writings.