The shortlist for New India Foundation’s third edition of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize covers a century of modern Indian history and straddles genres — biography and investigative reportage, environment histories, anthropology, and history.
The award, which celebrates excellence in non-fiction writings on contemporary India, has shortlisted six books this year. The titles are Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements by Amit Ahuja (Oxford University Press); Midnight’s Machines: A Political History of Technology in India by Arun Mohan Sukumar (Penguin Random House); The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra by Arupjyoti Saikia (Oxford University Press); A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon by Jairam Ramesh (Penguin Random House); Bottle of Lies: Ranbaxy and the Dark Side of Indian Pharma by Katherine Eban (Juggernaut); and Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth by Stephen Alter (Aleph).