The year is close to ending, and we feel very happy that, despite everything, we've managed to publish a handful of excellent books. Maybe because our three security officers -- Piku, Soda, Barauni -- and our two interns -- Jerry and Joey -- kept our morale up through these twelve months of death, illness, lockdowns, uncertainties. We are grateful to S.P. Dangwal, typesetter, Shyama Warner, editor, Sapra Brothers, printer, and to Orient Blackswan Publisher, our exclusive distributors. Also to Hachette India, with whom we collaborate for our Black Kite imprint, and Ashoka University, with whose support we publish the Hedgehog and Fox series of outstanding scholarly titles. Other news: in addition to the Dharmanand Kosambi Memorial Prize for Ancient India, we have now endowed the S. Gopal Memorial Prize for Modern India, to be awarded to the best history students at Ashoka University. Wishing you happy holidays and a new year that feels new. Find us on Twitter: @permanentblack Foll
The Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award 2021 has gone to Partha Chatterjee's I AM THE PEOPLE. In a statement, the awarding committee said: "Chatterjee’s genealogy of populist politics, in India and around the world, is at once a significant intervention into political theory and a trenchant diagnosis of our contemporary condition. Chatterjee brings critical theory to life, using it not only to deconstruct the modern nation-state but also to excavate the more hopeful possibilities embedded in the present." The award is be given annually by the Press to a book by a Columbia University faculty member that brings the highest distinction to Columbia University and Columbia University Press for its outstanding contribution to academic and public discourse. The Press’s faculty Publication Committee members serve as jurors. Each year they will consider books published in the two full calendar years prior to the award year. The winning au