U. R. Ananthamurthy met his wife Esther in 1954 and they were married in 1956. They had two children, Sharath and Anuradha. He resided in Bangalore for most of his later life. His son in law Vivek Shanbhag also was a famous writer in Kannada.

Ananthamurthy was born into Kannada-speaking family in Melige, in Tirthahalli taluk in the Shimoga District. His education started in a traditional Sanskrit school in Doorvasapura and continued in Tirthahalli and Mysore. After receiving a Master of Arts degree from the University of Mysore, U. R. Ananthamurthy taught in the English department at University of Mysore (pictured) for a while before embarking to England for further studies on a Commonwealth Scholarship. He earned his doctorate from the University of Birmingham in 1966 for his dissertation thesis entitled “Politics and Fiction in the 1930s”.

Ananthamurthy started his career as a professor and instructor in 1970 in English department of University of Mysore. He was the Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala from 1987 to 1991. He served as the Chairman of National Book Trust India for the year 1992. In 1993 he was elected as the president of Sahitya Academy. He served as a visiting professor in many Indian and foreign universities including Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Tübingen, University of Iowa, Tufts University and Shivaji University. Ananthamurthy served twice as the Chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India. In 2012 he was appointed the first Chancellor of Central University of Karnataka.

Ananthamurthy has participated and delivered lectures in numerous seminars as writer and orator both in and outside the country. He was the member of the committee of Indian writers and visited countries like the Soviet Union, Hungary, France and West Germany in 1990. He visited Moscow in 1989 as board member for a Soviet newspaper. Ananthamurthy was the leader for the committee of writers who visited China in 1993.

U. R. Ananthamurthy made an unsuccessful run for the Lok Sabha in 2004 in which he stated that his prime ideological objective in opting to contest the elections was to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Ananthamurthy also contested for the Rajya Sabha elections from state assembly in 2006.

In June 2007, Ananthamurthy declared that he would not take part in literary functions in future in the wake of strong criticism for his reaction on S.L. Bhyrappa’s controversial novel Aavarana that appeared in a section of the media.

In 2013, Murthy’s statement that there is a reference in the Mahabharata to Brahmin’s consuming beef drew flak from Hindu religious leaders. Vishwesha Teertha Swami of Pejawar Math commented that there was no reference to Brahmins consuming beef in the conversation between Bhishma and Yudhishtira or anywhere else in the Mahabharata and Murthy’s statement came as a surprise to him.

A vocal critic of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)/Jan Sangh for over 50 years, Murthy said in 2013 that he would not live in the country ruled by BJP leader Narendra Modi. He later clarified that those remarks were made when he was “overcome by emotion” and said that he had no such plan, though he continued to oppose BJP. Murthy was given special police protection after he began receiving threatening phone calls. Later when Modi became the Prime Minister he was given a free ticket to Pakistan by a group of Modi supporters called “NaMo Brigade”. The co-founder of “NaMo Brigade”, Chakravarti Sulibele, publicly criticised Murthy quoting:

After Murthy’s death was announced on 22 August 2014, several BJP and Hindu Jagarana Vedike were booked for celebrating his death by bursting crackers at four places in Mangalore and one spot in Chikkamagaluru.

Ananthamurthy died of cardiac arrest on 22 August 2014 at Manipal Hospital, in Bangalore, India, aged 81. He had been suffering from kidney related disease for some years, and was undergoing dialysis treatment with diabetes and heart problem. He was admitted to Manipal Hospital on 13 August with an infection and fever, and underwent treatment on a multi-support system.