Vivek V. Narayan is a scholar, performance-maker, and writer working on caste and anti-caste politics in south India. He is Assistant Professor of English, Theatre, and Performance Studies at Ashoka University and an alumnus of Stanford University, Royal Holloway, University of London, and St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. His book project, Stolen Fire: Caste Scripts and Anti-Caste Politics in South India, 1806-1941, views the long history of anti-caste struggle in colonial-era Travancore through the lens of performance. His writing appears in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures, Theatre Survey, J-CASTE, Modern Drama, The Georgia Review, Black Warrior Review, Muse India, The Caravan, AZURE, The Bombay Review, and The Hindu, among others, while his plays have been performed at various venues in India, the UK, and the USA. His work was awarded the Bluestone Rising Scholar Prize in 2019, the Charles R. Lyons Memorial Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in 2019, two Charles Wallace India Trust Awards in 2009 and 2023, a Postdoctoral Fellowship from ICAS:MP in 2024, and was shortlisted for the Hindu MetroPlus Playwright Award in 2008.
