Aruna Ramchandra Dhere (Devanagari: अरुणा रामचंद्र ढेरे) (b. 1957) is a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India.
She has a Ph.D. from Pune University in Marathi literature. Miss Dhere was a lecturer and producer in the Educational Media Research Center at Pune University during 1983-1988, and then had a short stint in the Maharashtra State Education Institution.
She is the daughter of Ramchandra Chintamani Dhere.
Starting around 1990, Dhere took up a full-time career as a writer. Her literary works include personal essays, short stories, novels, poems, travelogues, children’s stories, and books on sant literature, folk literature, and social history.
She has written on the lives especially of women from earlier times who rebelled against old traditions.
Some of her poems have been translated into other languages, including English.
She has written a few television screenplays and dialogues.
Dhere has edited over a dozen publications and magazines.
She has won about thirty awards from government bodies and literary associations for her literary work.
Dhere has been on the senate of Pune University and the Advisory Committee of Akashvani.
She was a member of three Maharashtra state government bodies related to cultural and literary activities: Lokasahitya Samiti, Sahitya Sanskruti Mandal, and Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha. In February 1999, along with poet Namdeo Dhondo Mahanor and writer Ram Balkrishna Shewalkar, she resigned from all literary organizations connected with the state government to protest against the tirade by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who had publicly said earlier that “littérateurs have contributed nothing to society.” She said that it would be difficult for her to continue functioning on those committees as “the government did not consider it to be its duty to protect literature and culture.”
The following is a partial list of Dhere's books: