Nemichandra , court poet of King Veera Ballala II and the Silhara King Lakshmana of Kholapur , wrote Lilavati Prabandham ( 1170 ) , the earliest available true fiction ( and hence a novel ) in Kannada , with an erotic bent . Written in the champu metre , with the ancient town Banavasi as the background , it narrates the love story of a Kadamba prince and a princess who eventually marry after facing many obstacles . The story is based on a c . 610 Sanskrit original called Vasavadatta by Subhandu . His other work , Neminathapurana , unfinished on account of his death ( and hence called Ardhanemi or " incomplete Nemi " ) , details the life of the 22nd Jain tirthankar Neminatha while treating the life of the god Krishna from a Jain angle .