ISBN: 9780143103240    Publisher: PENGUIN INDIA Year of publishing: 2007     Format:  Paperback No of Pages: 389        Language: English

"Few books in recent years, if any, offer such a comprehensive overview of what ails India, its politicians and its people; and few writers, apart from Nirad Chaudhury and V. S. Naipaul, benefit so obviously from the perspective Tharoor offers, that of an Indian with a profound empathy for his native culture, combined with the insight made possible by following India's progress from afar." -- New York Times "A hard-hitting, powerfully analytical and supremely articulate new book. . . . Tharoor discusses the 'flawed miracle of Indian democracy' from various angles, opting for a take-no-prisoners approach as he criticizes politicians, unpacks layers of misguided governmental policies and exposes the atavistic tendencies of special-interest pols." -- Newsday "Tharoor looks back at his country's first 50 years of independence, describing its challenges (illiteracy, poverty, sectarian violence and the ever-present caste problem) and its triumphs (a thriving democracy, a burgeoning economy) in lively, informative prose. He is particularly adept at describing all that India and Indians are not--not the same ethnicity, religion or language--to arrive at the nation's essence: that 'the singular thing about India was that you could only speak of it in the plural'." -- Seattle Times
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Shashi Tharoor has worked at the United Nations since 1978 and is the executive assistant to the secretary-general of the United Nations. He graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and took his doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. His first novel, The Great Indian Novel, was published to international acclaim and won the Federation of Indian Publishers-Hindustan Times Literary Award (1989-90) and a 1990 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
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