Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) was one of the most important figures in modern Indian history. He made significant contributions to Indian and world culture as a scholar, a poet, a revolutionary organizer, a politician, a philosopher, and a yogi and spiritual guide.

I tried to bring out the many-sidedness of his personality in two biographies: Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography (1989), and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo (2008), and in two anthologies of his writings, Essential Writings of Sri Aurobindo (1998) and Nationalism, Religion, and Beyond (2005). In Situating Sri Aurobindo: A Reader (2013), I brought together fifteen essays by leading scholars which demonstrate the contemporary importance of Sri Aurobindo in the fields of literature, political science, philosophy and spirituality.