Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi is a Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. An intellectual historian, political theorist and writer, she was educated in Delhi, Oxford and Chicago. Her new book, PLACE: Intimate Encounters with Cities is published by Women Unlimited Ink (2026). Her translation of her father Kailash Vajpeyi’s poems from Hindi, Signature on the Wind, is forthcoming from Sahitya Akademi in 2026. Her first book, Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India (2012) won the Thomas J Wilson Memorial Prize from Harvard University Press, the Crossword Award for Non-Fiction, the Tata First Book Prize for Non-Fiction, and was listed among Books of the Year by The Guardian and The New Republic. Apart from her scholarly work, she has published opinion, reportage, non-fiction and short fiction in leading newspapers, magazines and edited volumes in India and abroad. She edited AROOP: Journal of Art, Ideas and Poetry from 2019 to 2024. She is currently completing a book about the modern life of Sanskrit.