Tharoor, Shashi (1956-…), is an Indian writer, diplomat, and politician. As a novelist, he is known for his bold experiments with narrative structure and the many forms of language he uses in his novels. His satirical first novel, The Great Indian Novel (1989), mixes modern Indian politics with characters and themes from the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian epic (long poem). The novel also contains a mixture of verse and prose. Tharoor’s second novel, Show Business (1991), follows the rise and fall of a motion-picture star in India from the beginning of his acting career to his second career as a politician. Show Business also contains a mixture of styles, and the main first-person narrator’s voice alternates with other voices and fragments of text from his films. Tharoor’s early short stories are collected in The Five-Dollar Smile (1990). Riot (2001) is a novel that examines religious tensions in India.
Tharoor has also written many nonfiction books on Indian politics and history. Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966-1977 (1982) had its origins in Tharoor’s doctoral dissertation (a written discussion for a doctor’s degree). India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997) is a collection of essays on the state of the Indian nation 50 years after it gained independence. Tharoor’s later books include Nehru: The Invention of India (2003); The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone (2007); Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century (2012); Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (2017); and The Struggle for India’s Soul: Nationalism and the Fate of Democracy (2021).
Shashi Tharoor was born on March 9, 1956, in London, England, to parents from Kerala, India. He grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta (now Kolkata), both in India. He was educated at St. Stephen’s College, in Delhi, India; and at Tufts University, near Boston, Massachusetts.
From 1978 to 2007, Tharoor worked for the United Nations (UN) directing refugee and peacekeeping operations in Singapore and the former Yugoslavia. From 1997 to 2006, he served as a special executive assistant to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
After leaving the UN, Tharoor began a career in Indian politics. In 2009, he became a member of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament. In 2022, Tharoor ran unsuccessfully for president of the Indian National Congress political party. In 2023, he was made a member of the party’s executive committee.
