India A Portrait
India A Portrait by Patrick French, published by Penguin in 2012, offers a comprehensive exploration of India’s journey from independence to becoming a vibrant democracy with a rapidly growing economy. This edition spans 448 pages and is presented in English. French delves into the complexities of Indian society, addressing its dynamic changes, divisions, and myriad identities, while seeking to uncover the essence of what constitutes the ‘real’ India.
Readers will find an intimate portrayal of 1.2 billion people as French travels across the country, engaging with a diverse range of individuals, from political leaders to everyday workers. The narrative captures the multifaceted nature of post-independence India, reflecting on its history and social dynamics. With a focus on modern developments in the 20th and 21st centuries, this book provides insights into the lives and experiences that shape contemporary Indian society, making it a significant contribution to the understanding of this developing nation.
Official synopsis Publisher
Patrick French’s India: A Portrait tells the story of how India emerged from a turbulent struggle for independence to become a vibrant democracy with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
India is the biggest democracy on earth, a country of dynamic change, huge divisions and countless identities. Is there any way to discover the ‘real’ India?
In this intimate biography of 1.2 billion people, Patrick French travels all over the country talking to everyone from political leaders to mafia dons, from chained quarry workers to self-made billionaire entrepreneurs, to tell the story of post-independence India as never before.
‘Patrick French brings one of the globe’s most dynamic nations springing to life … he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the country, sensitivity to its subtler nuances and a wealth of research’
Sunday Times
‘It’s gripping … If you’re Indian, reading the book is like learning the history of your country in four days’
New Indian Express
‘Fizzing with wit, insight and infectious curiosity … a thoroughly enjoyable romp through six momentous decades’
Wall Street Journal Asia
‘Wide-ranging, clear-sighted, warm-hearted and immensely readable … The human tales that French finds are engrossing’
Evening Standard
‘A rich colouring of contemporary characters and events, many of them sharply observed at first hand. Crammed with elegant portraits’
Economist
Patrick French is the author of Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Royal Society of Literature W. H. Heinemann Prize, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division, which won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize, and India: A Portrait.
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