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Two Indian-origin Authors have been Nominated for the British Academy Book Prize

Explore the 2023 British Academy Book Prize shortlist, which includes Indian-born authors Nandini Das and Kris Manjapra, offering insights into global cultural understanding.
on Sep 13, 2023

Two Indian-born authors, UK-based Nandini Das and US-based Kris Manjapra, are among six global writers on the shortlist for the 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, which was announced in London on Tuesday.

India-born Nandini Das is in the running for 'Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire' while Caribbean-born Manjapra of mixed African and Indian parentage has been shortlisted for 'Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation'.

The award, now in its 11th year, is open to authors of any nationality living anywhere in the world and producing in any language, as long as the nominated work is available in English and published in the United Kingdom. It honours nonfiction books based on research that have made a remarkable contribution to public awareness of world cultures and their interconnections.

"We were greatly impressed by the exceptional quality of writing on this year's shortlist, as well as the authors' ability to unearth extraordinary new discoveries and find new perspectives on old perceptions," said Professor Charles Tripp, Fellow of the British Academy and head of the 2023 jury.

Ms. Das, in her forties, is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford's English faculty. She was raised in India and attended Jadavpur University in Kolkata before travelling to England to complete her education. The assessors commended her shortlisted work as a "ground-breaking" debut.

"This beautifully written book tells the story of England's first diplomatic mission to India in the early 1600s, through a combination of biography and historical narrative, alternating microscopic details with broader panoramas," the judges write.

"As we learn how the Mughals and English understood and misunderstood each other, we appreciate how Das's shifting perspective reveals important insights into global connections and changing power dynamics during this pivotal period of world history," they said.

Mr. Manjapra, who is in his forties and grew up in Canada, is now the Stearns Trustee Professor of History and Global Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. His shortlisted piece addresses slavery's slow, drawn-out demise and the failure of emancipation.

"Written with restrained passion, this is a detailed and disturbing account of the false dawn of emancipation that accompanied the formal abolition of slavery in the 19th century," the judges said.

"Against the enormity of the transatlantic slave trade and the myths surrounding its abolition, this book gives life and memory to the enslaved, identifies the forces that built new systems of servitude in the aftermath of slavery, and argues forcefully against the abolition of these ghosts in our social order," they wrote.

Other authors on the shortlist for 2023 include France-based Daniel Foliard for 'The Violence of Colonial Photography,' which explores the role of photography in the history of British and French imperialism; Spain-based Irene Vallejo for 'Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World,' which chronicles literary culture in the ancient world; UK-based journalist Tania Branigan for 'Red Memory,' which unearths rarely-heard stories from China; and US-based

The GBP 25,000 prize winner will be announced on October 31 during an awards ceremony in London, where each of the shortlisted writers will earn GBP 1,000.

Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed FBA, Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics; Professor Rebecca Earle, food historian and Professor of History at the University of Warwick; Fatima Manji, award-winning broadcaster; and Professor Gary Younge Hon, award-winning author, broadcaster, and Professor of Sociology at the University of Man make up the 2023 judging panel for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.