Blog | Permanent Black

Read interviews, essays, extracts

May 30
2 min

The Annual Prizes from Permanent Black

This year's winners have been announced! Dharmanand Kosambi Memorial Book Prize: Rubab Ali Punjabi, Susan Philip, Uma Tara Bakshi Simon...

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Nov 17, 2023
2 min

TWO INFOSYS PRIZE WINNERS!

We are delighted and proud that the just-announced Infosys Prize has been awarded to two scholars whom we published years before the...

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Apr 30, 2023
4 min

Ranajit Guha (1923 - 2023)

For Ranajit Guha's ninetieth birthday, Permanent Black had asked "a few scholars and friends of Ranajit Guha to contribute a short piece...

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Feb 23, 2023
1 min

Come to the World Book Fair 2023!

This year's World Book Fair is special for us as it coincides with the 75th anniversary of Orient Blackswan publishers (formerly...

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Jan 21, 2023
10 min

Translating Sanjay Subrahmanyam

A measure of the international stature of historians is the prestige of the university or institutional campus that employs them and the...

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Dec 21, 2022
16 min

"Ashoka was not faceless" Nayanjot Lahiri

The historian spoke to Abhishek Roy about her new book. Nayanjot Lahiri’s first effort at narrative history, Finding Forgotten Cities ...

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Jul 14, 2022
1 min

Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya

We had sad news yesterday, about the passing of Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya. Searching around for a picture of him we realised he had not...

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Jun 27, 2022
2 min

The annual prizes from Permanent Black

When Permanent Black turned twenty, we instituted the Kosambi Memorial Book Prize to be given annually to the best student in Ancient...

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Jun 27, 2022
3 min

Studying in Strange Times

We have all had odd experiences lately. Odd in the sense that they could not have been imagined before 2020. The pandemic in which we...

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Jun 27, 2022
3 min

The Inconveniences of History

If I were asked to put it into words, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a major way in which studying History as a part of my Undergraduate...

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Jun 27, 2022
3 min

Where is history?

Growing up, I was fortunate to be surrounded by people who enjoyed creative pursuits and engaging in the social sciences. It certainly...

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May 25, 2022
2 min

A.R. Venkatachalapathy chosen for Lifetime Achievement Award

Historian and professor of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), A.R. Venkatachalapathy, has been selected for the...

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Jan 26, 2022
6 min

Citizen Kaun?

Niraja Gopal Jayal speaks to Madhav Khosla about her book, Citizenship and its Discontents Q1. It is sometimes felt that a strictly legal...

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Jan 25, 2022
9 min

"An exciting time to be doing philosophy" Akeel Bilgrami speaks to Uday Singh Mehta

To mark the publication of Akeel Bilgrami’s Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment, we requested the political theorist Uday Singh Mehta...

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Jan 24, 2022
29 min

The religion of Gandhi: A Conversation about Satyagraha: Ajay Skaria talks with Omair Ahmad

It is rare to speak of “religion” in the political domain these days, and you mention your own difficulties in breaking out of the...

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Jan 23, 2022
32 min

The Unfamiliarity of the Past

Joya Chatterji's most recent book is PARTITION’S LEGACIES . It was published by Permanent Black in June 2019. In this wide-ranging...

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Jan 20, 2022
3 min

Love and Laughter in Lockdown

ARITRA GHOSH, winner of the Kosambi Memorial Book Prize 2021, awarded every year by Permanent Black, gives us a student's guide to...

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Jan 19, 2022
15 min

Neeladri Bhattacharya in conversation about his book

Neeladri Bhattacharya’s monograph, The Great Agrarian Conquest: The Colonial Reshaping of a Rural World (Ranikhet: Permanent Black,...

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Jan 18, 2022
9 min

"Every nationality has its own distinct stench": by G. Kanato Chophy

Wonderfully written and deeply moving new book on society and history in Nagaland over the past couple of centuries has just been...

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