Datttreya Ramachandra Bendre is a prominent poet of the Kannada modernist school, Navodaya. He is one of the eight recipients from Karnataka of the Bharatiya Jnanpith, the highest civilian award given to a littérateur in India. He was born in Dharwad, a region in north Karnataka. During his long period of unemployment, he participated in the Indian struggle for freedom. In 1944, he joined D. A. V. College at Solapur as a Kannada professor and retired in 1956. After his retirement, he became an advisor in All India Radio from 1956 to 1959. He died at the age of 85.