Bangalore based historian, Dr. Vikram Sampath is the author of six acclaimed books: Splendours of Royal Mysore: the Untold Story of the Wodeyars; “My Name Is GauharJaan: The Life and Times of a Musician”, “Voice of the Veena: S Balachander -‐ A Biography” and “Women of the Records.” His latest books are the two-volume biography— “Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past” and “Savarkar: A Contested Legacy” from Penguin Random House India—both of which have gone on to become National Best Sellers.
Dr. Sampath was recently conferred the honour of being elected as a Fellow of UK’s prestigious Royal Historical Society. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s first YuvaPuraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical research in New York for his book on GauharJaan. The book has also been adapted to theatre as a play “Gauhar” by Lillette Dubey and is being adapted to a Bollywood film by Ashutosh Gowariker. Dr. Sampath was among the 4 writers and artists to be selected as a Writer-in-Residence at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2015. He has a Doctorate in history & music from the University of Queensland, Australia and was a Senior Research Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He is also an Aspen Global Leadership Fellow and an Eisenhower Global Fellow 2021. An Engineer/mathematician from BITS-Pilani and an MBA in Finance from S. P. Jain, Mumbai, Dr. Sampath is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India’s first digital sound archive for vintage recordings, is the Founder-Director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, Indic Thoughts Festival and ‘ARTH-‐ A Culture Fest’.
