Peter Heehs’s widely praised biography, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, was released by Columbia University Press in 2008.
“The product of a lifetime of scholarship, its empirical depth and analytical sharpness is unlikely to be surpassed. For Heehs knows the documentary evidence on and around Aurobindo’s life better than anyone else. He has a deep knowledge of the political and spiritual worlds in which his subject moved and by which he was shaped….Before Aurobindo, writes Heehs, ‘no one dared to speak openly of independence; twenty years later, it became the movement’s accepted goal’. He praises Aurobindo’s contributions to literature and philosophy.” — Ramachandra Guha, writing in the Calcutta Telegraph
“Heehs’s book was a revelation, one that elevates its subject rather than diminishes him. It is a first-rate piece of intellectual history at many levels. Its reconstruction of Aurobindo’s difficult and often obscure thought is remarkably precise.” — Pratap Bhanu Mehta, writing in The Indian Express
“Heehs’s biography adds many fine details from Aurobindo’s own diaries and retrospective writings alongside accounts from family, friends, associates, and foes. The overall result is a masterful and inspiring biography that provides a solid foundation for further Aurobindo studies and offers plenty of cues for other kinds of historical, textual, and exegetical work that could enhance our understanding of the multiple sites in which Aurobindo lived and worked. . . . Heehs’s abilities to balance his admiration for Sri Aurobindo with a historian’s scrupulousness towards source have resulted in what may likely be the definitive biography of Aurobindo.” — Hanna H. Kim, writing in H-Net Reviews
“Sri Aurobindo has at last received the scholarly biography he deserves—and we need.”
— Robert McDermott, author of The Essential Aurobindo
Read the author’s post about the writing of this book on the Columbia University Press blog.
Listen to an interview with the author on the EnlightenNext website.
Read an article based on an interview with the author on the Auroville Today website.
Books by Peter Heehs 