Kapil Komireddi is an essayist, author, and journalist. He was born in India, and educated there and in England.
His first book — Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India, a compressed polemical history of India from Nehru to Narendra Modi — was published to critical and commercial acclaim in the UK (Hurst) and India (Westland) in 2019, and in the US (OUP) in 2020. It was selected among the best books of the season by the Times Literary Supplement and Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times, and named a Book of the Year by India Today and Business Standard. The Spectator praised Komireddi as the “VS Naipaul of his generation”.
Komireddi has written from numerous conflict zones — including Syria, Palestine, Sri Lanka and Pakistan — and interviewed and profiled a number of world leaders. His commentary, criticism, and journalism — from South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East — appear, among other leading publications, in the New Yorker, The Spectator, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Mail, TIME, Foreign Policy, The Critic, The Indian Express, and The Jewish Chronicle.
A highly sought after speaker, Komireddi has delivered private and public talks and lectures at, among other venues, Yale, Chatham House, London, Jerusalem, New York, Chamonix and Singapore. He has also advised, written speeches, and drafted widely circulated published commentary for a number of high-profile figures, including serving or retired heads of government and state, in Europe.
Komireddi is the international editor of Modern Review, a forthcoming global monthly magazine headquartered in London; an international affairs panellist on Monocle24 radio; and he appears frequently on international media, including ABC, CBC, BBC and CNN, to discuss international affairs.