famous biography books in india

10 Best Biographies of Indian Personalities You Should Read

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Famous person biographies are always a source of inspiration. The biographies will inform you about the controversies and dark sides of a person you may not be familiar with. Some people write biographies to dispel myths about themselves, while others seek to provoke criticism. Here is a list of the best biographies of Indian personalities that you should definitely sit down and read.

Also read: 15 Best Biographies and Autobiography Books for your TBR List

1. The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of The Genius Ramanujan – Robert Kanigel

Source: Wikipedia

A Life of the Genius: The Man Who Knew Infinity – Robert Kanigel wrote Ramanujan, a biography of Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, in 1991. The book details his upbringing in India, as well as his mathematical accomplishments and collaboration with mathematician G. H. Hardy.

2. Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India – Joseph Lelyveld

In this biography of the many biographies of Mahatma Gandhi, Lelyveld has attempted to present a very unbiased and rooted Gandhi in flesh and bones. Gandhi appears in this biography more as a human and less as a God. It was interpreted as a way of presenting Gandhi in a “ perverse ” manner which in fact was a misinterpretation of an honest writeup.

3. Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan – Shrabani Basu

“Spy Princess,” tells the story of Noor’s life from birth to death, using information from her family, friends, witnesses, and official documents, including recently released personal files of SOE operatives. It’s the story of a young woman who lived with grace, beauty, courage, and determination, and who bravely gave up her life in the service of her ideals. “Liberte” was her final word.

4. The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani – Hamish McDonald

The Australian author wrote this biography of Dhirubhai Ambani, his struggles, and his journey towards success. Apparently, this book hurt the sentiments of the Ambani family and could never be published in India. It is still considered one of the most interesting biographies written about an Indian personality.

5. Beyond the Last Blue Mountain – R. M. Lala

An in-depth and unforgettable portrait of India’s most illustrious and revered industrialist. This superb biography, written with J.R.D. Tata’s cooperation, tells J.R.D.’s story from birth to 1993, the year he died in Switzerland. This biography is a must-read thus making its way on to our list of best biographies of Indian personalities.

6. Vivekananda: A Biography – Swami Nikhilananda

Swami Vivekananda’s (1863 – 1902) vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture, deep spiritual insight, brilliant conversation, broad human sympathy, and colourful personality are presented in this engrossing biography. Swami Vivekananda, India’s first spiritual and cultural ambassador to the West, preached Vedanta’s universal message: the Godhead’s non-duality, the soul’s divinity, the oneness of existence, and religious harmony. Swami Vivekananda’s life is chronicled in this 256-page book, which includes 28 photographs and an appendix with Swami’s most important teachings.

7. Nani A. Palkhivala: A life – M V Kamath

Nanabhoy Palkhivala’s life is chronicled in this biography. He was a staunch supporter of civil liberties, a foresighted economist, and a renowned lawyer. M.V. Kamath depicts all facets of this charismatic personality in this detailed book. Interviews, letters, and archival material from a variety of reliable sources are used to compile this comprehensive book. Before writing this book, Kamath conducted extensive research into Nani’s life, as evidenced by the large amount of information intertwined with the biography. While the book provides details about specific events in Nani’s life, it also highlights Indian history that was relevant to those events, providing context.

8. Karmayogi: A Biography of E. Sreedharan – M.S. Ashokan

Source: Wikibio

Sreedharan’s years with the Railways, the construction of the Kolkata Metro and the Konkan Railway, followed by the Delhi Metro, and the many metro projects he is currently involved with are all chronicled in this fascinating book. This is the uplifting story of a very private person who has become an icon of modern India because of his uncompromising work ethic, adapted from a bestselling Malayalam biography.

9. Indra Nooyi – A Biography – Annapoorna

The life of Indra Nooyi is chronicled in Indra Nooyi: A Biography. Her life is chronicled in the book, from her early years in Chennai to her struggles to make a name for herself in the corporate world. It chronicles her journey from the time she moved to the United States, married, and rose steadily to her current position as CEO of the world’s second-largest food and beverage company. Rajpal published Indra Nooyi: A Biography as a paperback in 2013.

10. Kalpana Chawla: A Life – Anil Padmanabhan

Kalpana Chawla, who was born into a conservative family in a Haryana provincial town, aspired to be a star. She became the first PBI – Indian woman to travel to space, and even more remarkably, to travel twice, through sheer hard work, indomitable intelligence, and immense faith in herself. Journalist Anil Padmanabhan interviews people who knew her family and friends at Karnal, as well as NASA colleagues, to create a moving portrait of a woman whose life was a shining affirmation that if you have a dream, you can achieve it no matter how difficult it is.

These were some of the best biographies of Indian personalities that one should read in order to gain a better understanding of famous people, history, and various unjust social practises.

I am a writer and an athlete. I spend my mornings drinking a hot cup of coffee and working out. Being a perfectionist, I also indulge in immense self-criticism.

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Best Biography Books / Biography / Biography Books / Biography Books India

Best Biography Books That Every Indian Should Read

by Yash Sharma · Published July 8, 2021 · Updated August 24, 2022

The following best biography books deserves to be read by every Indian irrespective of his or her caste, creed, religion, color, and ethnicity. It includes books on Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel The Iron Man Of India, Rani Laxmibai, JRD Tata, PV Narasimha Rao, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Saheb Kanshiram, Feroze Gandhi, Dara Sikhoh, Guru Nanak, and Baba Saheb Ambedkar.

14 Best Biography Books For Indian Readers

1. The life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer

2. Without Fear, The life and trial of Bhagat Singh by Kuldeep Nayar

3. The Man who unified India by Balraj Krishna

4. Rani Laxmibai the warrior queen of Jhansi by Pratibha Ranade

5. Beyond the last blue Mountain, A life of J.R.D. Tata by R.M. Lala

6. Half Lion how PV Narasimha Rao transformed India by Vinay Sitapati

7. Love and Revolution the authorised biography of Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Ali Madeeh Hashmi

8. Jawaharlal Nehru A biography by Frank Moraes

9. Syama Prasad Mookerjee life and times by TathaGata Roy

10. Kanshiram, leader of the Dalits by Badri Narayan

11. Feroze the forgotten Gandhi by Bertil Falk

12. The Emperor who never was, Dara Sikhoh in mughal India by Supriya Gandhi

13. Guru Nanak: The First Sikh Guru by Harish Dhillon

14. Ambedkar towards an enlightened India by Gail Omvedt

The life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer

The more you read Gandhi, the more you realise his ingenuity and the love and admiration for his people. The life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer is a necessary book to read. The way he interpreted Mohandas Gandhi is laudable.

Biography book on Mahatma Gandhi.

For the detailed article you can read from here – Mahatma Gandhi

Order your copy from here – The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer

Without Fear, The life and trial of Bhagat Singh by Kuldeep Nayar –

Without Fear by Kuldip Nayar is a brilliant book. Within a few hundred pages the author has unravelled the life and times of legendary Sardar Bhagat Singh.

Without Fear by Kuldeep Nayar

For the detailed article you can read from here – Bhagat Singh

Order your copy from here – Without Fear, The Life and Trial Of Bhagat Singh by Kuldeep Nayar

The Man who unified India by Balraj Krishna

Miniscule of people in Indian history can match the stature of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The more you read about Sardar the more you realise that how great he was. The iron man of India single handedly assimilated more than 560 Princely States into the Indian union. A feat in itself.

The Man Who Unified India, Sardar Patel

For the detailed article you can read from here – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Order your copy from here – The man who unified India by Balraj Krishna

Rani Laxmibai the warrior queen of Jhansi by Pratibha Ranade

Rani Laxmibai, The Warrior Queen Of Jhansi is a concisely written book about the Queen-cum-diplomat-cum-warrior of Hindustan who died on the battlefield like a brave soldier while fighting the forces of the British East India Company.

Biography of Rani Laxmibai

For the detailed article you can read from here – Rani Laxmibai

Order your copy from here – Rani Laxmibai, The Warrior Queen Of Jhansi

Beyond the last blue Mountain, A life of J.R.D. Tata by R.M. Lala

Beyond the last blue mountain, A life of J. R. D. Tata is a nicely written biography of the former Chairman of Tata Sons and the only Indian industrialist till date who was bestowed with the prestigious, Bharat Ratna award.

J.R.D Tata, The Father of the Indian Aviation

For the detailed article you can read from here – J. R. D. Tata

Order your copy from here – Beyond the last blue mountain by R.M. Lala

Half Lion how PV Narasimha Rao transformed India by Vinay Sitapati

Half lion, how PV Narasimha Rao transformed india, is brilliantly researched biography of the man who not only dismantled the so called ”Licence-permit-quota” Raj and opened up the Indian economy, but he also applied in letter and spirit the ancient Vedic principle of Vasudhaiva kutumbakam, which means ‘The world is one big family’.

Narasimha Rao, The Father of the Indian economic reforms

For the detailed article you can read from here – P. V. Narasimha Rao

Order your copy from here – Half Lion how P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India by Vinay Sitapati

Love and Revolution the authorised biography of Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Ali Madeeh Hashmi

ये दाग़ दाग़ उजाला, ये शब-गज़ीदा सहर वो इन्तज़ार था जिस का, ये वो सहर तो नहीं

(This stained light, this night-bitten dawn;

This is not that long awaited day break)

Subh-e azadi (Dawn of independence) was written way back in August 1947 by the revolutionary Urdu Poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Faiz Saheb was a poet of few words. In fact, each and every word of his represents the sentiment of a common man. That’s why he’s still revered throughout the Indian subcontinent.

Love and Revolution, Faiz Ahmed Faiz is the authorised biography of the legendary Urdu Poet, Faiz.

The main USP of this book is that within few hundred pages the author (Grandson of Faiz) has unravelled the life and times of Faiz Saheb.

Biography of Faiz Ahmed Faiz

For the detailed article you can read from here – Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Order your copy from here – Love and Revolution, Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Jawaharlal Nehru A biography by Frank Moraes

Jawaharlal Nehru, A biography, is a well analysed and written in a very crafty manner by Frank Moraes. Although, before I write on this topic, I wanna tell you people one thing for sure that this book is not everyone’s cup of tea. But if you have already read about history of the Indian freedom movement and especially the contribution of Pandit Nehru in the Indian freedom struggle, then, you can surely go for this book.

The First Prime Minister of Independent India, Pandit Nehru.

For the detailed article about Jawaharlal Nehru you can read from here – Jawaharlal Nehru

Order your copy from here – Jawaharlal Nehru by Frank Moraes

Syama Prasad Mookerjee life and times by TathaGata Roy

Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Life and times, is thoroughly researched and a well written book. In fact this is the only complete biography we have at present on Dr Mookerjee, The founder of the Bhartiya Jana Sangh.

Syama Prasad Mookerjee, The Founder of the Jana Sangh

For the detailed article you can read from here – Syama Prasad Mookerjee

Order your copy from here – Syama Prasad Mookerjee Life and Times by TathaGata Roy

Kanshiram, leader of the Dalits by Badri Narayan

Kanshiram, leader of the Dalits is a concisely written biography of Kanshiram Of BSP

Manyavar Kanshiram was the founder of the Bahujan samaj party (BSP), and after Baba Saheb Ambedkar he is one of the most important icons for the Dalits of Hindustan.

Kanshiram, The leader of the Dalits.

For the detailed article you can read from here – Manyavar Kanshiram

Order your copy from here – Kanshiram leader of the Dalits by Badri Narayan

Feroze the forgotten Gandhi by Bertil Falk

Feroze the forgotten gandhi, is the story of the man who not only forgotten by the Nehru-Gandhi family but also by the people of India. A good book indeed.

The Forgotten Gandhi by Bertil Falk.

For the detailed article you can read from here – Feroze Gandhi

Order your copy from here – Feroze the forgotten Gandhi by Bertil Falk

The Emperor who never was, Dara Sikhoh in mughal India by Supriya Gandhi

The Emperor Who Never Was, Dara Shikoh in Mughal India is a meticulously researched and narratively written biography of the Mughal Prince, Dara Shikoh.

Although, it’s a book about the life and times of Dara Shikoh but it also tells us lots of things about the Mughals, especially the role of the Mughal women in administration and other necessary chores.

Biography of Dara Shikoh

For the detailed article you can read from here – Dara Shikoh

Order your copy from here – The Emperor who never was, Dara Shikoh in Mughal India

Guru Nanak: The First Sikh Guru by Harish Dhillon

The world needs Baba Guru Nanak and his philosophy now than ever before.

Guru Nanak, The First Sikh Guru is a readable and a concisely written biography of the founder of the world’s youngest religion, The Sikhism.

Biography of Guru Nanak

For the detailed article you can read from here – Guru Nanak

Order your copy from here – Guru Nanak, The First Sikh Guru

Ambedkar towards an enlightened India by Gail Omvedt

It’s a concisely written biography about the Chief architect of the Indian Constitution and one of the foremost intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Dr BR Ambedkar, The Father of the Indian Constitution

Order your copy from here – Ambedkar towards an enlightened India by Gail Omvedt

These are some of the best biography books which I’ve read and strongly recommend to Indian readers. As, reading, writing and gaining knowledge is a continuous process so I’ll add more best biography books in the near future too.

I hope you like these recommendations about the best biography books. Thanks for reading, Jai Hind.

Tags: Best Biography Books Biography Books Biography Books India

Yash Sharma

Namaste reader, My name is Yash, and books for me are like a medicine, which removes my ignorance and also helps me in behaving more like a human.Though I live in the world’s largest democracy, India, but when I look around, I realized that this democratic nation of mine has turned into a kind of feudal oligarchy or kleptocracy, where people from a particular community or I would say particular surname has hijacked this democracy, and the political parties in India has turned itself into a kind of family enterprises where the family members are the only shareholders. And I want to change this, and books are a weapon which is helping me, so that I can help others and my nation.Shukriya for reading this Thought of mine.

Didi The Untold Mamata Banerjee By Shutapa Paul

August 1, 2021

by Yash Sharma · Published August 1, 2021 · Last modified October 22, 2021

Ghaffar khan : The Frontier Gandhi

June 21, 2020

by Yash Sharma · Published June 21, 2020 · Last modified July 7, 2020

10 Must-Read Biographies On Inspirational People From India

M.F. Husain was a prolific painter on whom the biography Husain: Portrait Of An Artist is based

Biographies always end up becoming a source of inspiration and many authors have compiled accounts on impactful Indians whose lives are worth sharing. We’ve shortlisted the 10 best biographies you should read.

Outlaw: india’s bandit queen and me by roy moxham.

Roy Moxham’s biography of spine-chilling events that occurred in Phoolan Mallah’s life was a result of his journey and friendship with her in the later years of her life. Known as ‘bandit queen’ in India, Phoolan hailed from a poor rural family in Uttar Pradesh. She was gang-raped and abused many times before she became a gang leader and then a Member of the Parliament in India. Roy’s biography is a gripping story of the incredible woman who was gunned down in 2001.

Phoolan Mallah’s life was anything but ordinary

Akhada: The Authorized Biography of Mahavir Singh Phogat by Saurabh Duggal

Mahavir Singh Phogat broke cultural norms and trained his daughters in wrestling

Sir C V Raman by A. Krishna Bhatt

This biography by A. Krishna Bhatt gives an intimate account of Nobel Prize winner C. V. Raman’s life . Bhatt’s research reveals how Raman was a jovial person, always curious and a great teacher. The book makes C. V. Raman more human, going beyond the image of a worshipped physicist. Raman’s humble beginnings and great achievements are a source of inspiration.

The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of The Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel

Robert Kanigel paints a picture of Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life since childhood in Tamil Nadu, India. His family couldn’t send him to school after a point but that didn’t stop Ramanujan from studying pure mathematics and working under the British mathematician G. H. Hardy. In his biography , Robert delves into Ramanujan’s struggle to be taken seriously and eventually being recognised for his contributions in mathematics.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a brilliant mathematician from India

Beyond the Last Blue Mountain by R. M. Lala

Beyond The Last Blue Mountain is one of the best biographies written about an Indian. The book is divided into four parts, taking the readers through the details of Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata’s childhood and milestones. J.R.D Tata’s interest in aviation that led to the beginning of the aviation industry in India and his contributions as an industrialist, are discussed comprehensively. The last part of the book talks about his friendships, personal life and how he kept it away from the public eye.

Beyond The Last Blue Mountain is one of the best Indian biographies ever written

Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu

Shrabani Basu’s detailed chronicle of Noor Inayat Khan makes the biography a riveting read. Noor was an Indian-origin Briton from an affluent family. As a shy, sensitive girl, she chose the most unlikely work for herself, in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force during the Second World War. She lived a life of danger and adventure before being killed in a concentration camp in Dachau. Basu’s book is heartwarming and inspirational.

Noor Inayat Khan was an Indian-origin British who died in a concentration camp in Dachau

Husain: Portrait of an Artist by Ila Pal

The late Maqbool Fida Husain, better known as M.F. Husain , was a peculiar but charming figure of the 20th-century. No one knows much about the man, except that he was an internationally acclaimed modern painter who always walked barefoot with a paintbrush in his hand. The image almost became his brand statement. Ila Pal goes deep into M.F. Husain’s life and reveals his wit and thought process. Ila met the painter in 1961 and made him her case study for 50 years and the biography is a beautiful culmination of that association.

Ila Pal’s book reveals who M.F. Husain really was

Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha

Gandhi Before India is a deviation from what is usually written about M.K. Gandhi who is revered as ‘father of the nation’ for his mammoth contributions to India’s independence movement. Ramachandra Guha’s detailed research spans across four continents. He writes about Gandhi’s formative years in South Africa and personal details of his life as a father and husband. Ramachandra’s beautifully written biography paints Gandhi in a different light and tells us why M. K. Gandhi was an inspirational figure.

Gandhi Before India describes Gandhi’s formative years

Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb by Jerry Pinto

Jerry Pinto is probably one of the best Indian authors of the 21st-century and his biography on Helen tells everything we ever wanted to know about the French-Burmese actress. An icon in Bollywood , Helen came to the country as a refugee from Burma. To support her widowed mother and two brothers she worked as a chorus dancer in Hindi films. At her career’s peak she was called the ‘H-Bomb’.

Jerry Pinto’s biography on Helen is riveting

Lilavati’s Daughters by Indian Academy of Sciences

The collection of biographical essays on women scientists of the 19th and 20th-century is nothing but inspirational. The book tells us about botanist E. K. Janaki Ammal, chemist Asmita Chatterjee, physician Anandibai Joshi, anthropologist Iravati Karve, biochemist Kamala Sohonie, medical researcher Kamal Ranadive and a few others who pioneered women’s education in India at a time when women were hardly allowed to finish high school.

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22 Famous Indian Authors (And Their Best Books)

Once upon a time, I spent a few months living in the north of India. This constituted one of the greatest adventures of my life. And on this journey, I picked up a few books that captured my attention.

I realized India has a rich literary tradition and is home to some of the best and most imaginative authors out there. More people should read these books. The sun goes down in a different way in India. And you can feel the same warm, exotic glow by sitting back and opening a book through which monsoons and smells of spices will flow. Of course, I haven’t read all the authors from this list (I intend to). But this is to serve as a reference for anyone interested in Indian literature who wants to go deeper and learn about its most distinguished literati, both classic and contemporary.

22 Famous Indian Authors And Their Notable Works:

1. rabindranath tagore.

This was the first Indian author I’ve ever read. I remember sitting on a bus going to my office in Chandigarh and reading Gitanjali and Stray Birds in an old paperback version. These poems changed my life and opened me up to something I’ve never experienced before. Tagore was born in 1861 and during his life, he wrote hundreds of poems, books, and articles. His father knew Persian and could recite the poetry of Hafiz by heart. You can see that many of these Sufi mysteries are also detectable in the great author’s work. It is always related to The Power of Love and the closeness to God. Later in life, Tagore visited the tombs of Saadi and Hafiz in Shiraz and admired these poets greatly. He was also deeply influenced by Baul mysticism, Sahaja Buddhism, Vedanta Philosophy, and the Upanishads. He was knighted by the British Empire in 1915, but within a couple of years, he resigned the title as a protest against British policies in India (especially the massacre in Amritsar in 1919, which grounds I walked during my stay in Punjab). Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1913).

Notable works:

Heart of God
Stray Birds

Quote from the author:

“The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.”

2. Jiddu Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti was a great Indian writer and philosopher who later in life moved to the USA. You can still find many recordings of his talks and lectures on YouTube (highly recommended). His interests were wide-ranging and included psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, societal change, and human relationships. I’ve learned a lot about meditation and the nature of consciousness from him. This includes the principle of non-grasping and non-judgment which serve me well to this day. He was one of the first people to bring Eastern thought to the West. His thesis was that a revolution in society can only be brought about at the level of an individual. By changing ourselves for the better we can change society as a whole. He pledged no allegiance to a nationality, caste, or religion and spent the later years of his life traveling around the world and giving lectures to large and small groups.

Freedom From The Known
Awakening of Intelligence

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems , and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”

3. Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat is a modern author, columnist, screenwriter, and television personality, especially known for his books geared toward young readers from the Indian middle class. He’s one of the most popular writers in the country and his books sold over 7 million copies all over the world (he writes primarily in English). The New York Times called him “the biggest-selling English language novelist in India’s history”. Interestingly, instead of literature, he studied mechanical engineering and business management. At some point, he even applied to work in investment banking for Goldman Sachs. He wrote his first books while still working for the company but later quit his full-time job and focused on writing . Many of his books served as an inspiration for Bollywood films and Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. However, in 2017 he was accused of plagiarism (regarding two of his books) and is now involved in a legal trial.

2 States: The Story of My Marriage
Half Girlfriend

“Pretty girls behave best when you ignore them. Of course, they have to know you are ignoring them, for otherwise, they may not even know you exist.”

4. Aravind Adiga

Adiga, born in 1974 in Chennai (Madras) is a modern Indian writer whose book “The White Tiger” won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. After growing up in Mangalore, he emigrated to Sydney, Australia with his family. Later on, he studied English literature at Columbia University in New York under the famous English historian, Simon Schama. After his studies, he began his career as a journalist, traveling the world and writing for publications such as Financial Times and TIME. He finally went freelance and then wrote his first big book The White Tiger, which portrays Balram, a lead character coming from crushing rural poverty but witnessing the rise of India as a modern global economy. The book sold over 200,000 copies of the hardcover edition. Now the author is back in India, living in Mumbai, where he writes and releases a new book every other year.

Last Man in Tower
The White Tiger

“Go to Old Delhi, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.”

5. Shashi Tharoor

Tharoor is not only famous for his writings. He’s one of the most influential Indians by any measure because of his involvement in politics and media. He’s been writing since 1981 and authored 18 best-selling works of fiction and non-fiction. All of them are centered around the history, culture, film, and politics of his native country. Moreover, he wrote hundreds of columns for prestigious publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Times of India. He’s a controversial figure in India known for his polarizing stances on many social and political issues. It’s almost too much to digest (he even got charged with abetment to the suicide of his wife in 2018).

An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
The Great Indian Novel

“India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.”

6. Amrita Pritam

Pritam, born in 1919 was a novelist, essayist, and poet who, unlike many of the authors on this list wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. She is known as the most prominent Punjabi poet who is loved both by Indians and Pakistanis. She lived a long life during which she produced over 100 books of poetry , fiction, and biographies, as well as a collection of beautiful Punjabi folk songs. Her works have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages. Her book Pinjar (The Skeleton) was groundbreaking and ultimately got adapted into an award-winning movie in 2003. She has been often compared to Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batlavi and was the most prominent voice for the liberation of women in Punjabi literature.

Raseedi Ticket

“Warish Shah I call out to you, Rise from your grave, speak out and turn, Another page of the Book of Love”

7. Kamala Markandaya

Another widely known female author from India, Kamala Markandaya, was born in Mysore in 1924. She was an acclaimed novelist and journalist known for writing about the conflict between different strata of Indian society (rural vs. urban), as well as the adoption of Western values in her country. Her book “Nectar in a Sieve” is a classic of Indian literature and has been in print continuously since 1955. After the Declaration of Independence, she moved to Britain but she always remained loyal to her native country and labeled herself an expatriate.

Nectar in a Sieve
A Handful of Rice

“For where shall a man turn who has no money? Where can he go? Wide, wide world, but as narrow as the coins in your hand. Like a tethered goat, so far and no farther. Only money can make the rope stretch, only money.”

8. Khushwant Singh

This list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Khushwant Singh, a Punjabi author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist, and politician. He lived through the partition of India in 1947 and this inspired him to write “Train to Pakistan”, which became his most famous novel (also made into a film in 1998). He fought fiercely for the independence of India from the British Empire and in the ’50s worked for All India Radio and UNESCO. Unlike many Indian authors, he abhorred spirituality and treated life with wit, humor, sarcasm, and an unending love for poetry.

Train to Pakistan
Delhi: A Novel

“Not forever does the bulbul sing In balmy shades of bowers, Not forever lasts the spring Nor ever blossom the flowers. Not forever reigneth joy, Sets the sun on days of bliss, Friendships not forever last, They know not life, who know not this.”

9. R.K. Narayan

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami is mostly known for his fiction works related to the South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading English language author in India along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. It might come as a surprise, but he was a close friend of Graham Greene, who helped him to get publishers for his first books . The fictional town Malgudi was first introduced in his book “Swami and Friends”. The made-up town had a pristine historical record dating back to the times of Ramayana and Buddha. He loved to show the humor of everyday life and has been often compared to William Faulkner. He wrote for over sixty years and lived to be 94.

The Guide: A Novel
Malgudi Days

“Friendship was another illusion like love, though it did not reach the same mad heights. People pretended that they were friends when the fact was they were brought together by the force of circumstances.”

10. Salman Rushdie

This author should not require an introduction. Rushdie first came on the map with his novel “Midnight’s Children” (1981) for which he won the Booker Prize. His works are a great combination of magical realism and historical fiction and are often set on the Indian subcontinent. His novel “The Satanic Verses”, put him in mortal danger from assassins who haunted him for many years on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued a fatwa, condemning the author to death, for his “blasphemous” novel which ostensibly offended the Prophet. He wrote many novels afterward and has been ranked 13th on the list of the best British writers since 1945.

The Satanic Verses
Midnight’s Children

“I am the total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done to me. I am everyone everything whose being in the world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’m gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”

11. Arundhati Roy

Roy is mostly known for her novel the “God of Small Things” for which she received a Man Booker Prize for fiction in 1997. This book became a huge bestseller and sold more copies than any other non-expatriate Indian novel. Her novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” also won many awards and found its way to the Man Booker Prize 2017 long list. She’s also a political activist and a fighter for environmental causes. She’s a polarizing figure in India, known for her scathing comments about Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister. Roy was featured in Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list in 2014.

The God of Small Things
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“To love. To be loved. Never forget your insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty in its lair. Never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

12. Vikram Seth

Born in 1952 in Calcutta, Seth is a part novelist, and part travel writer known mostly for his first novel “The Golden Gate” and the epic novel “A Suitable Boy”. The author was raised in London and graduated from Oxford, and Stanford where he studied economics. It took him a long time to get the attention of the public and some of his first volumes did not attract critical attention. The first book that conquered the hearts of readers was a humorous travelogue “From Heaven Lake.” His books are most often written in verse but his book of prose “A Suitable Boy”, which has 1349 pages, is often compared to the works of Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens.

A Suitable Boy
The Golden Gate

“But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they’re bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they’re good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.”

13. Anita Desai

Anita Desai is the author of many widely acclaimed children’s books written in the English language. She was born to a German mother and a Bengali father and grew up speaking German, Hindi, and English. Except for children’s books, she wrote many novels on the theme of women’s oppression in India. Her writing style is poetic and does not shy away from tragedy and high drama. She received many awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the British Guardian Prize for her work. In 1993, her novel “In Custody” was made into a film that won the 1994 President of India Gold Medal for Best Picture.

Clear Light of Day
Fasting, Feasting

“Isn’t it strange how life won’t flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?”

14. Jhumpa Lahiri

Although she was born in London, and now has American citizenship, her background is ethnically Indian (her parents come from West Bengal). Her work often explores the Indian immigrant experience in America. Her book “Interpreter of Maladies” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Hemingway award. Moreover, her second novel “The Namesake” was made into a popular movie of the same name. In 2011 she moved to Rome and since then she has translated a few Italian books into English. Her forthcoming book is going to be written in Italian as well.

Interpreter of Maladies
The Namesake

“You are still young, free.. Do yourself a favor. Before it’s too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”

15. Amitav Ghosh

Ghosh is mostly known for his English works of fiction. He’s also the winner of the prestigious Jnanpith Award for his outstanding contribution to literature. He was born in Calcutta in 1956 but later moved with his family to New York, USA, where he joined The Queen’s College as a distinguished professor of comparative literature. He’s also been a visiting professor in the English department at Harvard University He later returned to India where he began working on his Ibis Trilogy. He wrote eight novels (the most famous one being the “Sea of Poppies”), as well as 6 works of nonfiction including many notable collections of essays. In his works, he often deals with epic themes of history, memory of political struggle, and communal violence which include elements of anthropology as well as art.

Sea of Poppies
The Glass Palace: A Novel

“What would it be like if I had something to defend – a home, a country, a family – and I found myself attacked by these ghostly men, these trusting boys? How do you fight an enemy who fights with neither enmity nor anger, but in submission to orders from superiors, without protest and conscience?”

16. Ruskin Bond

Bond is an Indian author of British descent. He’s known for his contributions to the children’s literature genre and he received many literary awards including Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. Many of his works are inspired by the hill stations at the foothills of the Himalayas. The author spent most of his childhood there. I also visited these places, including Dharamshala, and attest – they are truly breathtaking. His most famous children’s book is called “The Angry River.” He once said: “I had a pretty lonely childhood and it [writing] helps me to understand a child better.” He’s been writing for over 50 years, and he lived through many societal and political changes in India. This is reflected in many of his works.

The Room on The Roof
The Blue Umbrella

“How evanescent those loves and friendships seem at this distance in time… We move on and make new attachments. We grow old. But sometimes, we hanker for old friendships, the old loves. Sometimes I wish I was young again. Or that I could travel back in time and pick up the threads. Absent so long, I may have stopped loving you, friends; but I will never stop loving the Day I loved you.”

17. Kiran Desai

Kiran is the daughter of Anita Desai, already mentioned in this list. Her novel “Inheritance of Loss” which took her seven years to complete won the Man Booker Award in 2006. She received many other accolades (including praise from Salman Rushdie) for her works and has been named as one of the 20 most influential Indian women. She was born in Delhi but later on, she moved to India and then to the United States where she studied creative writing at Bennington College, Hollins University, and Columbia University. Despite publishing just two books, she’s still one of the most widely-known English language writers from India

The Inheritance of Loss
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

“Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.”

18. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Chitra is an author and poet who was born in Kolkata but now holds American citizenship as well. She received many awards and many of her books are currently turned into movies and TV shows. Her works are set both in India and the United States and often depict the life of immigrants. What’s quite distinctive about her work is that she writes in many genres and for many audiences including adults and children. She penned a dozen books of fiction, a couple of books for young adults and children, and many books of poetry.

The Palace of Illusions: A Novel
Sister of My Heart: A Novel

“Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That’s what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel – and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside.”

19. Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Chaudhuri lived to be 101 years old, and he almost lived in three different centuries. He was born in 1897 still in British India and died in 1999 in Oxford, England. He wrote both in English and Bengali. His books often touch upon the themes of the history and cultural changes in India, especially in the context of the British Empire. His magnum opus “The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian” attracted many admirers over the years, including Winston Churchill. It’s an autobiography of Chaudhuri from his birth to the age of 50. The book brought about much controversy and was a great account of how colonial rule worked.

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
A Passage to England

“I understood the life around me better, not from love, which everybody acknowledges being a great teacher, but from estrangement, to which nobody has attributed the power of reinforcing insight”.

20. Mahatma Gandhi

This man doesn’t need any introduction. He played a huge role in a political movement that ultimately led to the liberation of India from the British Empire. Most people know him for his political activism and service to his country. But he was also an avid writer who left behind many interesting books that chronicled his fight for independence and his philosophy. His book “The Story of my experiments with Truth” is a collection of 105 essays covering different aspects of his life and the development of his philosophy. Another book called “Hind Swaraj” was written in 1909 but already sketched out a dream of a free India.

Notable Works:

The Story of My Experiments with Truth
India of My Dreams

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”

21. Dilip Hiro

Hiro’s career spans many years and unlike other authors mentioned in this article, he’s known mostly for his works of non-fiction, on the theme of war and politics. He’s a fierce political commentator who to this day contributes to publications such as The Guardian. His latest book is called “The Cold War in the Islamic World” and it’s about the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Now he’s based in England where he continues with his analysis of the current political landscape (including the rivalry between India and Pakistan).

The Longest War
Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Iran

“When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in the smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, “Minimal.”

22. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

Chatterji could be as well in the first place on this list as he is the most popular, and the most translated Indian author of all time. He was born in Bengal at the end of the 19th century and remains the most widely known novelist in the Bengali language. His works mostly deal with the day, often tragic life of the villagers of his native land. He received little formal schooling but was endowed with a love of literature from his father. He later improved his writing skills under the tutelage of Kishorimohan Mukherjee. From then on, he was involved in the fight for independence and established himself as one of India’s most famous writers.

“They’ll have the sweet, intimate memories of a lost paradise, and beside it a sea of sorrow… People looking on from the outside think all is lost… What remains when everything is lost can be held in the palm, like a jewel. It can’t be flaunted in a pageant, so the lookers-on are disappointed and jeer as they return home..”

You can’t overestimate the value that Indian literature played in the world literary tradition. I hope that this quick list of the most notable Indian authors will inspire you to grab some of their books. This is going to be a valuable experience, especially if you come from a Western tradition. You will learn so much more about a world you never truly experienced. And this newfound knowledge will bring you to a new plane of understanding, and perhaps, inspire you to explore the literary traditions of other countries. Next up, you may want to check the list of the top Indian book publishing companies .

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Hey there, welcome to my blog! I'm a full-time entrepreneur building two companies, a digital marketer, and a content creator with 10+ years of experience. I started RafalReyzer.com to provide you with great tools and strategies you can use to become a proficient digital marketer and achieve freedom through online creativity. My site is a one-stop shop for digital marketers, and content enthusiasts who want to be independent, earn more money, and create beautiful things. Explore my journey here , and don't miss out on my AI Marketing Mastery online course.

16 Autobiography Books By Famous Indian Personality That Should Definitely Be On Your Bookshelf

10 Must Read Biographies of Inspirational People from India

by Pratiti Nath September 27, 2021

Don’t know where life is going?

1. The Man Who Knew Infinity (Srinivasa Ramanujan) by Robert Kanigel

2. Sir C.V. Raman by Uma Parameswaran

3. Helen: The life and times of H-Bomb by Jerry Pinto

4. Outlaw (Phoolan Devi) by Roy Moxham

5. Spy Princess (Noor Inayat Khan) by Shrabani Basu

6. Dilip Kumar: The Definitive Biography by Bunny Reuban

7. Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye by Andrew Robinson

8. Beyond the Last Blue Mountain (JRD Tata) by R.M. Lala

9. Husain: Portrait of an Artist by Ila Pal

10. Gandhi Before India (M.K. Gandhi) by Ramachandra Guha

Written by Pratiti Nath

A heritage and travel enthusiast with a penchant for sustainable living and travel, Pratiti writes on key issues governing health, environment, travel and culture. A microbiologist by vocation and a writer/editor by profession Pratiti brings science and innovation in her pursuits of life. When not traveling she can be found addressing key issues on her blog at https://agantukthestrangersdesk.wordpress.com/

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10 of the best books set in India – that will take you there

Tired of narratives that obsess over spices, colours and cows on the road? These books, all by Indian writers, paint realistic pictures of the country’s geographical, cultural and political landscapes

Share your own suggestions in the comments below

W hen I researched my book Around India in 80 Trains , one of the small joys of my four-month railway adventure was idling on platforms and rummaging through the iconic old Wheeler stalls for paperbacks to keep me company. Sometimes I’d get conned with pirated copies, flicking hungrily to the last few pages only to find they were missing, or the final lines had slid off the photocopied page. But for the most part my rucksack was stacked with stories that shaped the curves of my journey.

Tired of narratives that obsess over spices, colours and cows on the road, I’ve chosen books by Indian writers only; after all, who knows a country better than its own people? Where the authors have used the old names of cities, I’ve done so too, in order to convey the duality of their nature: having spent a couple of years living in Madras as a child, I know the familiar emotions and memories that the name conjures up, whereas Chennai is a completely different city to me.

Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi

“Return is never the experience you hope for,” Doshi begins, setting the tone for the story of Grace, a young woman coming back to Madras after her mother’s death, to find she has inherited a pink beach house down the coast – and a sister with Down’s syndrome. Small Days and Nights is a compelling story about family, which follows Grace as she slips between Madras, Kodaikanal and Paramankeni, her needs, wants and urges changing with her surroundings as she tries to reconcile desire with duty. A poet, dancer and novelist, Doshi centres the female body in all her work, and it’s through the weight of Grace’s legs, or the lightness in her bones that we, too, feel the effects of the “womb noise” of the sea in Paramankeni, the whiplash of Kodaikanal rain that “smells of sex”, and the dreamy transitional city of Madras, where the trees look weak and hungover.

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

With characteristic brazenness, Thayil opens with a dedication to HCV – the hepatitis C virus that he contracted while sharing needles and injecting government morphine in the 1980s. It’s followed by a languorous six-page sentence that unfurls like smoke from a pipe – a prelude to a powerhouse of a novel about Bombay’s old opium dens. Built from brutality and grouted together with beauty, Narcopolis begins as a homage to a city of harmony and acceptance, celebrating Bombay as the hero of the story – a sanctuary for Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians – then morphs into an epitaph of a city “which obliterated its own history by changing its name and surgically altering its face”.

Shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2012, Thayil refuses to use “Mumbai”, a name that was forced upon its residents by the far-right Hindu Shiv Sena party, and his affection for his former home makes this a potent love letter to the island city and its dead.

Boats on Land by Janice Pariat

A village on the outskirts of Shillong, in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya, home to two of the wettest places on Earth.

Like a succession of quick slaps across the face, the opening lines of each story of this debut collection make you sit up and take full notice. Parachuting the reader straight in through low-hanging quilts of cloud, Pariat drops us between the plump tea bushes in and around the hill station of Shillong, where it’s cold and damp and mists swirl with the supernatural. Here, in the furthest reaches of India’s north-eastern fingertips, we learn about Khasi politics and culture, but always with a sense of unease – where the night is “slashed by lightning”, “knifed with light”, and the sky “the colour of razor blades”. Beginning with the days of British rule and stretching up to a modern-day marital infidelity, each of the 15 stories is written in seamless prose that doesn’t jolt or falter through italics or apologetic explanations of bilati, doh thli and jadoh. If you don’t know their meanings it’s up to you to look them up.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Adiga upset many middle-class Indians when The White Tiger hit their bookshelves like a sledgehammer, winning him the Booker prize. Written from the perspective of Balram, the son of a rickshaw puller, the book is a series of letters that he writes feverishly, but never sends, to the soon-to-be-visiting Chinese premier, documenting his wily ascent from tea boy to wealthy entrepreneur. Through his sharp-eyed, witty and frenzied descriptions, Adiga doesn’t just highlight the brutal injustices and corruption of Indian society but slaps them across the paper in broad, bushy strokes. Although the book was released in 2008, one line stands out for its relevance today: “One fact about India is that you can take almost anything that you hear about the country from the prime minister and turn it upside down and then you will have the truth about that thing.”

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

Not many novels are set in Bangalore, the more subdued sibling of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. However, here we find Shalini, a 24-year-old numbed by the banality of her privileged life in the Garden City. Since her mother’s death, three years earlier, she’s lived in limbo, unable to commit to anything and plagued by a memory from her childhood of a Kashmiri man appearing twice at their garden gate. In a feverish moment she decides to leave home to find him, swapping her weekend trips to Bali, and beer-sticky house parties, for the blue-grey mountains of Kashmir, where the air is tinged with the “medicinal sharpness of pine sap” and waterfalls churn to a “filigreed white froth”.

Vijay’s beautiful debut leaps back and forth while shining a light on a politically fractious region from the perspective of a civilian – that, too, a single woman traipsing the length of India alone in search of the unknown.

Following Fish by Samanth Subramanian

Traditional fishermen’s craft in Tamil Nadu.

The only non-fiction on this list, this collection strings together nine stories gathered along the Indian coast, from Bengal to Gujarat. With fish as the starting point, Subramanian examines its role in food, medicine, culture and religion by talking to everyone he meets on his haphazard travels, from Goan fishermen and priests, to Kolkata hotel chefs and a faith-healing family in Hyderabad. Dense and rigorous journalism, the writing ignites when the author sits down to eat: whether he’s tasting raw fish podi made from powdered mackerel that “races to the back of the throat and proceeds to set your tonsils on fire”, or sampling toddy-shop food that is typically “kicked into a high orbit of spice”, it’s hard to resist the urge to follow in his footsteps.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The first Indian woman to win the Booker, Roy caused a storm in the literary world when her lyrical debut was published in 1997, spurring a number of authors who tried to emulate her style, while others decried her success – the sure sign of a good book.

Set in Kerala – known as God’s Own Country, for its vast backwaters, bent palms and cool greenery – the book opens in the brooding heat of May, when bananas ripen, jackfruits burst and crows devour the mangoes, before the monsoon breaks, tiny fish appear in puddles and “bullfrogs cruise for mates”. Tragedy has destroyed a family, and after many years an estranged pair of twins are reuniting where it all began.

Scattering capital letters and pulling and playing around with language, Roy paints a vivid picture of Indian politics, the cruelty of caste, and the “small things” that keep us afloat.

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

A hulking beast of a book, this delicious thriller sinks deep into Bombay’s criminal underworld, as Sikh cop Sartaj Singh goes after the infamous gangster Ganesh Gaitonde. Packed with policemen stroking splendid handlebar moustaches, lapdogs being hurled from balconies, and villains with bulging, bloodshot eyes, Sacred Games is a brilliant exploration of politics, history and corruption. For the unfamiliar, it is also a swift education in the peculiarities of the city’s various districts, like Bandra, Tardeo and Dadar, offering peeks into the homes of Bombay’s rich, “30,000 square feet of Italian marble floors tied together with intercoms”, and the poor – where residents have no choice but to “let their little daughters squat to make a mess exactly where their sons played”.

Published in 2006, the novel is now a wildly popular series on Netflix .

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

Few novels begin with the sheer horror of this one: a horror that rises from the belly, making you gasp and catch your breath before turning the page.

It is Calcutta in the 1960s and the wealthy son of a paper-mill owner has abandoned the Ghosh family to join a Maoist rebellion, helping farmers to fight their landlords while his Tolstoyan array of relatives deal with their own multitude of tribulations. Shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2014, this is a tome of extraordinary reach and richness, written by an author whose gift lies not just in his ability to imagine the lives of others but to embody them: he details how those starving outside a luxury hotel will hunt for a “stub of banana” left in a peel, while in the affluent world a whole family is “caught up in a song-and-dance” in an attempt to get food down a fussy toddler.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world.

If we’re being technical, this 2006 Booker prize-winner oscillates between the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal and the basement kitchens of New York, following the lives of a judge, his granddaughter, her maths tutor, their cook and his son. But the Indian backdrop could almost be a sixth character, where the trees are “moss-slung giants, bunioned and misshapen”, and Mount Kanchenjunga looms with a “wizard phosphorescence”. Desai takes on a mammoth endeavour in linking these seemingly disparate lives, but does so with panache while also being incredibly funny. She exposes one generation suffering from a crisis of identity owing to colonialism – Judge Jemubhai Patel eating chapatis with a knife and fork – and another generation still looking to the west for a better future… while sharing a bed in shifts.

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