Description: Here is the first popular biography of one of the most powerful women in the twentieth century, Indira Nehru Gandhi. India's third prime minister, she was voted "Woman of the Millennium" by the BBC. Now the acclaimed biographer Katherine Frank uncovers the personal Indira, drawing from unpublished sources and more than a hundred interviews with people who knew her. The result is a beautifully drawn, complete, and balanced portrait. Steeped in the volatile history and exotic locale of the world's largest democracy, Indira tells a tale of epic proportions about a life marked by surprising contradictions.

Wary at first of the political spotlight, Indira eventually played an important role in many of the major events of India's past century. An Indian who was fluent in English, she rose to power in a country with more than 850 million people who spoke scores of indigenous languages. She was born to a wealthy, westernized family, but her real constituency was the poor of the countryside and the urban slums, the illiterate, the dispossessed. From the powerful influence of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, to her misguided relationships with her two sons and political heirs, to the fateful decision that led to her assassination, Indira shows us a figure who was brave, shrewd, isolated, sometimes flawed, and always fascinating. It is certain to be the definitive biography of this charismatic leader.

Please Wait