Manu S. Pillai was born in Kerala in 1990 and educated at Fergusson College, Pune, and at King’s College London. Following the completion of his master’s degree, where he presented his thesis on the emergence of religious nationalism in nineteenth-century India, in 2011-12, he managed the parliamentary office of Dr Shashi Tharoor in New Delhi and was then aide to Lord Bilimoria CBE DL, a crossbencher at the House of Lords in London in 2012-13. That same year he was commissioned by the BBC as a researcher to work with Prof. Sunil Khilnani on the ‘Incarnations’ history series, which tells the story of India through fifty great lives.
Books in order of publication:
The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore. HarperCollins India, 2015
Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji. Juggernaut, 2018.
The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History. Illustrated by Priya Kuriyan. Context, 2019.
False Allies: India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma. Juggernaut, 2021.
Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. Penguin Allen Lane, 2024.
Oak Lawn Library Friends 