Urvashi Butalia

Urvashi Butalia
Urvashi Butalia in 2011
Born	1952 (age 64–65) Ambala, Haryana
Occupation	historian co-founder Kali for Women (1984), founder Zubaan Books(2003)
Website	www.zubaanbooks.com

Urvashi Butalia (born 1952) is an Indian feminist and publisher. Along with Ritu Menon, she co-founded Kali for Women, India's first exclusively feminist publishing house, in 1984. In 2003, following the closure of Kali for Women, she founded Zubaan Books.

Butalia was born in Ambala, Haryana, into a very rich, progressive and atheist family of Punjabi heritage. She is the third of the four children of Joginder Singh Butalia and his wife Subhadra. Her mother, Subhadra Butalia, was a feminist who ran a counseling center for women. Butalia has one [elder] sister, Bela, and two brothers, Pankaj and Rahul.Pankaj Butalia is a left-wing documentary maker best known for a documentary on the miserable conditions of widows living in Vrindavan.

Butalia earned a BA in literature from Miranda House, Delhi University in 1971, a Masters in literature from Delhi University in 1973, and a Masters in South Asian Studies from the University of London in 1977.

Butalia started her career working with Oxford University Press in Delhi. She later worked for a year at their Oxford headquarters, before moving briefly to London-based Zed Books as an editor in 1982. She then returned to India and, along with Ritu Menon, set up a feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, in 1984, .

Butalia's main areas of interest are partition and oral histories from a feminist and left-wing perspective. She has written on gender, communalism, fundamentalism and media. Her writings have appeared in several newspapers and magazines publications including The Guardian, the New Internationalist, The Statesman, The Times of India, Outlook and India Today. She has been a regular columnist for the left-wing Tehelka and for Indian Printer and publisher, a B2B publication dealing with the print and publishing industry.