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The transformation of Delhi into a twenty-first century metropolis is an intoxicating, at times terrifying story - that has repercussions for the future not only in India but everywhere
‘A terrific portrait of Delhi right now’ SALMAN RUSHDIE
‘An astonishing tour de force by a major writer at the peak of his powers’ WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
WINNER OF THE PRIX ÉMILE GUIMET DE LITTÉRATURE ASIATIQUE 2017
WINNER OF THE RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI AWARD 2017
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2015
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2015
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIX DU MEILLEUR LIVRE ÉTRANGER 2016
When Rana Dasgupta arrived in Delhi at the turn of the twenty-first century, he had no intention of staying for long, but the city beguiled him - he ‘fell in love and in hate with it’ - and fifteen years later, Delhi is still his home.
Over these fifteen years, he has watched as the tumult of destruction and creation which accompanies India’s economic boom transformed the face of the city. In Capital, he explores the life-changing consequences for Delhi’s people, meeting with billionaires and bureaucrats, drug dealers and metal traders, slum dwellers and psychoanalysts. These encounters, interwoven with over a century of history, plunge us into Delhi’s intoxicating, sometimes terrifying, story of capitalist transformation - one that has repercussions not only for India, but for everybody’s future.
“A beautifully written portrait of a corrupt, violent and traumatised city growing so fast it is almost unrecognisable to its own inhabitants. An astonishing tour de force by a major writer at the peak of his powers”
William Dalrymple
See more reviews
“A terrific portrait of Delhi right now and hits a lot of nails on the head”
Salman Rushdie
vogue
“Lyrical and haunting”
international New York Times
“Achingly beautiful … and cleverly tangential”
financial Times
“Intense, lyrical, erudite and powerful”
observer
Rana Dasgupta
Rana Dasgupta won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book for his debut novel Solo. He is also the author of a collection of urban folktales, Tokyo Cancelled, which was shortlisted for the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Capital, his first work of non-fiction, has been shortlisted for The Orwell Prize 2015. Born in Canterbury in 1971, he now lives in Delhi.