A.R. Venkatachalapathy (1967) was born in Gudiyattam, in the Vellore district of Tamil Nadu and was educated in Chennai and New Delhi. A historian and Tamil writer, he is a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. Chalapathy has taught at universities in Tirunelveli, Chennai, Singapore and Chicago, and has held research assignments in Paris, Cambridge, London, and Harvard. He is the winner of the V.K.R.V. Rao Prize; Vilakku Virudhu and Iyal Virudhu (both for lifetime contribution to Tamil literature) and the Mahakavi Bharati Award. Chalapathy has published widely on the social, cultural and intellectual history of colonial Tamil Nadu. Apart from his writings in English, he has written or edited over thirty books in Tamil.