Raghu Karnad

Raghu Karnad is a writer and journalist based in New Delhi, India. Many international awards have been bestowed upon his articles, including the Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize in 2008, the Press Institute of India National Award for Reporting on Victims of Armed Conflict in 2008, and a prize from the inaugural Financial Times-Bodley Head Essay Competition in 2012.  In 2019, he was awarded Yale’s Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction, and in 2022-’23, he is a Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library.

His most notable non-fiction book, ‘Farthest Field – An Indian Story of the Second World War,’ was inspired by old portrait photographs in his grandmother’s house. The book is about an important aspect of India and World War II that few people, including himself, seemed to be aware of.

Raghu Karnad traveled to Thailand in April 2022 to conduct research for his new project on two important Thai figures in the art and literary circles, Fua Haripitak and Karuna Kusalasai. After meeting Tawatchai at the suggestion of a Visva-Bharati University professor and Tawatchai’s friend, he decided to stay at MATDOT while in Bangkok. Despite the fact that Raghu Karnad was only with us for a few days, his commitment to his work inspired us greatly. The work will undoubtedly be another noteworthy chapter.