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Cauvery Madhavan was born in India, where she began her career as a copywriter in Chennai before moving to County Sligo in 1987. She later settled in County Kildare, where she lives today with her husband near their three children.

She is the author of four novels: The Inheritance (2024), The Tainted (2020), The Uncoupling (2003), and Paddy Indian (2001). A regular contributor to The Irish Times, she has also written for the Evening Herald, Sunday Tribune, The Phoenix, Travel Extra, and The Guardian. Known for her meticulous research, she approaches both fiction and journalism with intellectual rigor and depth—often reading extensively to inform her opinion pieces. An avid reader since childhood, she cites Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea as the book that inspired her to write, and credits Amitav Ghosh as another major influence. She reads widely across genres—except horror—with a particular love for historical fiction and stories that illuminate hidden histories. She is deeply honored to serve as the Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Chair of Irish Studies, a position previously held by some of her literary heroes.

Madhavan’s third novel, The Tainted, was chosen by Laureate Sebastian Barry for his Laureate Picks in 2020, and it was one of An Post Book Awards’ Top Summer Read, and it won the runner-up prize for the SAHR Prize for Military Fiction. Set between colonial India and post-independence Ireland the novel traces the intertwined fates of Anglo-Indian and Irish families. The novel explores the afterlives of empire — how identity, belonging, shame, hybridity, and memory are shaped by colonial histories and continue to structure lives long after formal colonial rule has ended. The novel makes readers feel, through intimate narrative, the ways in which colonial legacies are not cleanly left behind but are carried in bodies, families, stories, and desires.

Her most recent novel, The Inheritance, was awarded the EasternEye ACTA Fiction Award. The novel, set in the late 1980s, follows Marlo O’Sullivan, who inherits a cottage in Glengarriff, County Kerry and there meets Sully, a non-verbal 6 year old. Sully’s relationship with an imaginary friend in the forests of Glengarriff reveals secrets about a four-hundred-year tragedy of loss and redemption that binds the living to the dead. The novel blends realism with supernatural and mythic elements to give voice to the land’s history, memory, and unresolved loss, revealing how past traumas quietly haunt the living.

Madhavan is currently at work on her fifth novel, set in India and featuring historical Irish characters, spanning from 1930 to 2010. Envisioned as a political statement, the book explores interconnected Irish narratives across generations. One character briefly encounters Mahatma Gandhi—an enduring influence on her work and worldview. She believes Gandhi’s teachings remain profoundly relevant today, offering a vital antidote to the challenges of the modern world.

As the 2026 Heimbold Chair, Madhavan looks forward to mentoring creative writing students at Villanova, bringing a teaching philosophy grounded in meeting each student where they are. She encourages writers to follow their own creative instincts—whether in poetry, prose, or essays—without limitation or prescription. Believing that writing can be a solitary pursuit, she hopes to foster community, offering guidance and support to those beginning or deepening their writing journeys.