Book on India's partition wins $5,000 prize

New York: A book on India's partition and its fatal consequences has won a prestigious USD 5,000 prize in the US.

Nisid Hajari's book 'Midnight`s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition' won the 2016 William E Colby Award, a statement said.

Midnight's Furies, Hajari's first book, covers the 1947 partition of India and the violence that surrounded that event.

Named after the former CIA director, William E Colby, the prize is awarded annually by Norwich University to a first-time author in recognition of a work of fiction or non-fiction that has made a major contribution to the understanding of military history, intelligence operations, or international affairs.

Hajari oversees Asia coverage for Bloomberg View, the editorial page of Bloomberg News. He writes editorials on Asian politics and economics and edits Bloomberg's opinion columns and commentary from the region. "I am absolutely thrilled to be named the recipient of the 2016 Colby Award," Hajari said.

"To join the company of such distinguished military and historical writers as Jon Meacham and Dexter Filkins is a tremendous honor, and it`s particularly gratifying that the judges chose to highlight a subject that may be unfamiliar to many American readers."

Carlo D'Este, the executive director of the Colby Symposium and the esteemed author of several books on WWII including biographies of Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, and Winston Churchill, describes Midnight?s Furies as "noteworthy, superbly readable, and very timely."

Winners of the Colby book award receive a USD 5,000 author honorarium provided through a grant from the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation. The award and honorarium will be presented to Hajari at Norwich University during the 2016 William E Colby Military Writers' Symposium on April 6-7.