D N Srinath worked as an assistant teacher at the Rashtriya Shikshan Samiti High School, Shivamogga, and later retired as the headmaster of Sharada Devi Balika High School. His passion for literature attracted the author to translation. At the age of 18, he translated the work "Shishira". He has translated not only Hindi but also Bengali language works into Kannada.

His important translated works are; The Sutra Doll, The Magician and His Spell, Dream Break, Storm in a Bowl, Python and the Sutra Doll, A Story of a House, Two Girls and a Man, Yellow Flower and the Third Witness (Novels) Shishir, Rogagrasta Nagari, Abhigyan, Final Bet, Hindi (Nilgate) Labangi, So Much Pakistan, Mantri in Swarg (Hindi Satirical Novel), Prince and the Crown, Nose Doctor, Rasika Nawab (Children's Novels), Justice and Other Stories, His Suicide and Other Hindi Stories (Story Collections), Kuruda and Goona, Blue-Headed Boys, Jambada Raja, Golden Mind, Vichitranya, Children's Mayaloka, Broken Wing and Other Stories of Asia (Children's Folklore Collections) etc.

He has received awards such as the Karnataka Government's Non-Hindi Language Writers' Award, the Goruru Literary Award, the Madhya Pradesh Rashtrabhasha Samiti, Bhopal's Late Hazari Lal Jain Smriti Samman, the Translation Award of the Central Hindi Directorate of the Human Resource Department of the Government of India, the Karnataka Translation Sahitya Akademi Award, the Visvesvaraya Award, the Kamal Goyarika Award, and the Central Sahitya Akademi Translation Award.