Ramachandra Guha was born and raised in the Himalayan foothills. He studied in Delhi and Kolkata, and has lived for many years in Bengaluru. His many books include a pioneering environmental history, The Unquiet Woods, a landmark history of the Republic, India after Gandhi, and an authoritative two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, each of which was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year. Having previously taught at Yale, Stanford and the Indian Institute of Science, he is currently Distinguished University Professor at Krea University.

Guha has been a professional historian for some three decades now. He has been a cricket fanatic for three decades longer still. He says he writes on history for a living; and on cricket to live. His awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society for Environmental History, the Cricket Society Book of the Year Award (for A Corner of a Foreign Field), the R.K. Narayan Prize and the Fukuoka Prize. He is the recipient of an honorary doctorate in the humanities from Yale University.