Rahul Bhattacharya is a novelist, journalist and editor. He was born in Bombay and lives in Delhi.
His new novel, Railsong, published in winter 2025 in India and spring 2026 in the UK and the US, is an India Today, Hindu, Frontline, Mint, Deccan Herald book of the year, and an NPR Favourite Fiction Read of 2026 So Far. It has won the Fiction Book of the Year at the FICCI Publishing Awards, been shortlisted for the Valley of Words Book Awards, and longlisted for the Kalinga Book Prize.
The Sly Company of People Who Care, his first novel, published in 2011, won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Hindu Literary Prize. It was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Economist Crossword Book Award, longlisted for the DSC Prize, and nominated for the Dublin Impac Literary Award. It was a Kirkus fiction Book of the Year.
His first book, Pundits from Pakistan, 2005, won the Crossword Popular Book Award in India, and was shortlisted for the Cricket Society Award, UK. In 2010, it was voted a top 10 cricket book of all time by The Wisden Cricketer magazine.
His journalism has appeared, among others, in the Guardian, the Economist’s Intelligent Life and 1843, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal, FT Weekend, Open, Hindustan Times and India Today. He was part of the founding team of editors at ESPNcricinfo’s The Cricket Monthly.