A woman for all seasons

Professor Nico Slate's book is an ode to a fascinating, courageous and multi-talented woman who lived through many chapters of India's evolution and built lasting institutions, including the IIC

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay – The Art of Freedom

Author: Nico Slate

Publisher: Fourth Estate /HarperCollins

Pages: xx +365

Price: Rs 799

Biographies and autobiographies are, for the most part, engaging commentaries on a country’s life. They bring an intimacy, an engagement, a “this is how it happened” twist to people, occasions and incidents. This remarkable life story of one of India’s most courageous and multi-talented women does just that. A part of the Indian Lives series edited by Ramachandra Guha, the volume represents years of prodigious research by Nico Slate of Carnegie Mellon University.

That the typewriter was almost a prosthesis on Kamaladevi’s many travels