: अनंत विठ्ठल कीर) (1913–1984) was a biographer from Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He wrote biographies in English and Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

 under the pen name Dhananajay Keer (धनंजय कीर).

Keer was born on April 23, 1913 in Ratnagiri

Ratnagiri

Ratnāgiri is a port city on the Arabian Sea coast in Ratnagiri district in the southwestern part of Maharashtra, India. The district is a part of Konkan.The Sahyadri mountains border Ratnagiri to the east...

. After finishing his elementary education, he worked for a few years with his father in the father's profession of carpentry, and then finished his high school education in 1935 at age 22. He took a few clerical jobs after that, and in 1943 started writing articles in English newspapers.

Biographical works

In English:

• Savarakar and His Times (1950)
• Dr. Ambedkar : Life and Mission (1954)
• Lokamanya Tilak : Father of Our Freedom Struggle (1959)
• Mahatma Jyotirao Phule : Father of Our Social Revolution (1964)
• Mahatma Gandhi : Political Saint and Unarmed Prophet (1973)
• Shahu Chhatrapati : A Royal Revolutionary (1976)

In Marathi:

• Mahatma Phule : Samagra Wangmay (1969) (Coeditor S. G. Malshe)
• Lokamanya Tilak Ani Rajarshi Shahu Maharaj : Ek Mulyamapan (1971)
• Teen Mahan Saraswat (1979)
• Hyani Itihas Ghadawila (1980)