Shashi Tharoor is the prize-winning author of ten works of fiction and non-fiction and a
widely published critic, commentator and columnist (for The Hindu, Times of India and
Newsweek, among others). In 2007 he concluded a nearly twenty-nine-year career at the
United Nations, during which he worked for refugees in South-east Asia at the peak of the
boat people crisis and handled peace-keeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.
Latterly, Tharoor occupied the role of Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public
Information and in 2006 he was nominated as India's candidate for UN Secretary-General,
emerging as strong second out of seven contenders.
Tharoor earned his PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at the age of twenty-
two and was named 'Global Leader of Tomorrow' at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998.
He was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India's highest honour for Indians living
overseas.
