Raghu Karnad is an Indian journalist and writer. He is a co-founder of ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

'', an independent news platform in India. Karnad is best known for his book ''Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War'', which won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar and the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Non-Fiction. His work often explores themes of history, politics, and culture.

Early life and education

Karnad is the son of playwright and actor

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian playwright, actor, film director, Kannada writer, and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi films. His rise as a playwr ...

and Dr Saraswathy Ganapathy. He completed his schooling in Bengaluru before attending

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

in the United States. During his studies, he spent a semester at the

American University in Cairo The American University in Cairo (AUC; ) is a private research university in New Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels, along with a continuing education program. ...

and managed to secure a meeting with

Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...

. In 2008, he completed an MSc in Contemporary India at

St Cross College St Cross College, known colloquially as StX, is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1965, St Cross is a graduate college with gothic and traditional-style buildings on ...

, the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Career

Karnad was a journalist for ''Tehelka Magazine'' in 2008. He reported on conflict and survival situations, including an award-winning cover story filed from Bhopal. He later served as the editor of '' Time Out'' Delhi. Karnad is a widely published essayist, and his work has appeared in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'', ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

'' and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. In 2019, he was one of the writers invited to the Neilson Hays Bangkok Literature Festival. In addition to print journalism, he has hosted podcasts like ''Friend of the Court'', which examines India's landmark constitutional cases.

''The Wire'' and journalism

In 2015, Karnad was part of the founding team of ''

The Wire (India) ''The Wire'' is an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M. K. Venu. It counts among the news outlets that are independent of the Indian government, and has bee ...

'', and later held the position of Chief of Bureau in New Delhi including during India's 2019 general elections. He has written, produced, and presented video essays for ''TheWire'', and a short documentary film titled ''Encounter: A Killer Cop Speaks''. Karnad consulted on the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary series '' Bad Boy Billionaires'', which was partly based on his 2012 investigative essay in ''The Caravan''.

Books

''Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War'' (2015)

In 2015, Karnad published ''Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War'', a nonfiction narrative exploring India's role in World War II through the personal histories of his family members. The book won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2016. It was also shortlisted for the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award, the Crossword Book Award, and the

Hessell-Tiltman Prize The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including World War II, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit, but not primari ...

in the same year. The book received a starred review from ''Publishers Weekly'', and historian Simon Winchester, writing for ''The New York Times'', described it as "so heart-stoppingly beautiful I want all around to read it too." A Marathi translation was published in 2015 by Karuna Gokhale through Rajhans Prakashan. A precursor to ''Farthest Field'', Karnad's long-form essay ''Everybody's Friend'' was published as an e-book in 2012. Historian Simon Schama, writing for ''The Financial Times'', called it "nothing short of brilliant."

Awards

Karnad has received multiple awards for his journalism and literary work, including: * 2022-'23 Fellow at the NYPL Cullman Fellowship (2022–23) at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

. * Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-Fiction (2019) awarded by Yale University's Beinecke Library for ''Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War''. *

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is an American news media organization established in 2006 that sponsors independent reporting on global issues that other media outlets are less willing or able to undertake on their own. The center's go ...

Grant (2018) for a story on tribal women, education, and dispossession, published in The New Yorker as ''The Diverging Paths of Two Young Women Foretell the Fate of a Tribe in India''. * The

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of the Indian government. Its off ...

Yuva Puraskar for a writer in English (2016) for ''Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War''. * The inaugural

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

Bodley Head The Bodley Head is an English book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1887 by John Lane and Elkin Mathews, The Bodley Head existed as an independent entity or as part of multiple consortia until it was acquired by Random ...

Essay Competition (2012) for ''Everybody's Friend: Looking for the Second World War in India's North-East''. * The Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize (2008) by the European Commission in Strasbourg for his reporting in ''Air, Water, Earth and the Sins of the Powerful''. * The Press Institute of India National Award for Reporting on the Victims of Armed Conflict in 2008 for The Hunting Party Returns.

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

Review
of ''Farthest Field'' by

John Keay John Stanley Melville Keay FRGS (born 1941) is a British historian, journalist, radio presenter and lecturer specialising in popular histories of India, the Far East and China, often with a particular focus on their colonisation and explora ...

Literary Review ''Literary Review'' is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho. The magazine was edited for fourteen years b ...

Interview
on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karnad, Raghu Year of birth missing (living people) Parsi people 21st-century Indian journalists Living people