Das wins the £25k British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding

Nandini Das has won the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding for her book Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury). 

The announcement was made by chair of the jury professor Charles Tripp FBA at a celebration at the British Academy. The winner was chosen from six shortlisted titles, the authors of which will each receive £1,000.

Das is professor of early modern literature and culture in the English faculty at the University of Oxford. In her debut, she explores the origins of empire through the story of the arrival of the first English ambassador in India.

Tripp said: “Nandini Das has written the true origin story of Britain and India. By using contemporary sources by Indian and by British political figures, officials and merchants she has given the story an unparalleled immediacy that brings to life these early encounters and the misunderstandings that sometimes threatened to wreck the whole endeavour.

"At the same time, she grants us a privileged vantage point from which we can appreciate how a measure of mutual understanding did begin to emerge, even though it was vulnerable to the ups and downs of Mughal politics and to the restless ambitions of the British.”

Professor Julia Black, president of the British Academy, added: “This is the British Academy’s 11th year of celebrating well-researched books that improve global cultural understanding. Every year, the need to understand each other across borders, boundaries and cultures seems ever more pressing. This year is no exception."

The British Academy Book Prize, formerly known as the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize, was established in 2013. It rewards works of non-fiction that demonstrate "rigour and originality", and that have contributed to public understanding of other world cultures and their interaction.

The 2022 winner was Alia Trabucco Zerán for When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold (And Other Stories), which has since been acquired by Netflix in association with the Chilean production company Fábula. A feature film based on the book, entitled "La Homicida", will be released in 2024.