Ask Bookie
I Am on the Hit List : A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India
Other Available Formats
Overview
FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE"A murder mystery, travelogue, and deeply felt homage to Romig's adopted country. Reading it will inform and outrage you. (It will also make you crave a dosa)."--Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City"Romig makes for a powerful, effective chronicler of this bleak moment in Indian politics."--The New York TimesA gripping investigation into the mysterious assassination of a journalist in India, revealing the courage and vulnerability of those who are fighting the decline of democracy around the world When Gauri Lankesh, an outspoken journalist in the South Indian city of Bangalore, was assassinated in September 2017 outside her home, it wasn't just a loss to her close-knit community of writers and activists--the shock reverberated nationwide, making headlines and sparking mass protests. Why was she targeted, and who was behind it? Following the case to its stunning, unsettling conclusion, Rollo Romig uncovers a world of political extremists, fearless writers, organized crime, and shadowy religious groups. I Am on the Hit List is an epic narrative that moves between a historic booksellers' district and brand-new high rises funded by IT wealth, to a secretive ashram in Goa and the kitchens of an international vegetarian restaurant chain, boldly interrogating whether we can break the cycle of polarization and bloodshed inspiring political murder across the globe.
Customers Also Bought
- 1
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780143135289
- ISBN-10: 0143135287
- Publisher: Penguin Books
- Publish Date: August 2024
- Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.57 pounds
- Page Count: 400
Related Categories
You May Also Like...
- 1
It’s not a total mystery who killed Gauri Lankesh, a hard-charging local journalist and activist in the South Indian city of Bangalore who was assassinated in 2017. Lankesh, the daughter of a famous Indian writer and publisher, was an aggressive critic of India’s right-wing religious groups, which have grown in power, prominence and violence under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party. While a few alternate theories are proffered about her death, I Am on the Hit List: A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India is not really a whodunit. Instead, it’s an obituary of a complicated woman and a portrait of a country’s descent into chaos, hatred and lawlessness. (Don’t worry: You still find out whodunit.) The assassinated journalist’s life is both inspiring and perplexing, as her understated career in niche local tabloids blossoms into martyrdom and legend upon her death. Lankesh was fearless—some argued reckless—in her opposition to government corruption, creeping religious fervor and the subjugation of women and minority groups. She fought with her dear friends in the pages of her newspaper, and her antagonism of powerful forces had those same friends and family worrying for her safety. And for good reason. It’s a story of complex family relationships, both within the Lankesh family specifically and Indian civil society more generally. As the story of Lankesh’s life and death unfolds, Rollo Romig, an American journalist with marital ties to Bangalore, sends the reader on several tangential journeys of varying levels of relevance: the story of Christian apostle “doubting” Thomas’ maybe-apocryphal mission to India, the history of the restaurant industry in India, a dazzling description of Bangalore’s astonishing book district. But the author’s reporting about the case has clearly been relentless; he traveled multiple times to the region and interviewed countless figures with connections to Lankesh, modern Indian politics and the case itself. The complex ethnopolitics of the region and the country offer a disturbing but vivid backdrop for the murder. India’s retreat from pluralism and growing embrace of bigotry and oppression mean that Lankesh’s story is just one of untold many of murder, political violence and religious strife in a desperate country.
It’s not a total mystery who killed Gauri Lankesh, a hard-charging local journalist and activist in the South Indian city of Bangalore who was assassinated in 2017. Lankesh, the daughter of a famous Indian writer and publisher, was an aggressive critic of India’s right-wing religious groups, which have grown in power, prominence and violence under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party. While a few alternate theories are proffered about her death, I Am on the Hit List: A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India is not really a whodunit. Instead, it’s an obituary of a complicated woman and a portrait of a country’s descent into chaos, hatred and lawlessness. (Don’t worry: You still find out whodunit.) The assassinated journalist’s life is both inspiring and perplexing, as her understated career in niche local tabloids blossoms into martyrdom and legend upon her death. Lankesh was fearless—some argued reckless—in her opposition to government corruption, creeping religious fervor and the subjugation of women and minority groups. She fought with her dear friends in the pages of her newspaper, and her antagonism of powerful forces had those same friends and family worrying for her safety. And for good reason. It’s a story of complex family relationships, both within the Lankesh family specifically and Indian civil society more generally. As the story of Lankesh’s life and death unfolds, Rollo Romig, an American journalist with marital ties to Bangalore, sends the reader on several tangential journeys of varying levels of relevance: the story of Christian apostle “doubting” Thomas’ maybe-apocryphal mission to India, the history of the restaurant industry in India, a dazzling description of Bangalore’s astonishing book district. But the author’s reporting about the case has clearly been relentless; he traveled multiple times to the region and interviewed countless figures with connections to Lankesh, modern Indian politics and the case itself. The complex ethnopolitics of the region and the country offer a disturbing but vivid backdrop for the murder. India’s retreat from pluralism and growing embrace of bigotry and oppression mean that Lankesh’s story is just one of untold many of murder, political violence and religious strife in a desperate country.