Study Guide · Chapter 24
Books and Authors
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Why This Chapter Matters
Books-and-authors questions test general awareness of India's literary and intellectual heritage as well as globally significant works, and they are a recurring, scoreable component of SSC GD and RPF Constable GS papers. The pattern is usually simple recall — matching a book to its author — so a well-organised reference list is the most efficient way to prepare. This chapter groups works by category: ancient and classical Indian texts, freedom-struggle and modern Indian literature, autobiographies of national leaders, and major world literary works.
Ancient and Classical Indian Texts
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ramayana | Maharishi Valmiki | Sanskrit epic; one of the two great epics of ancient India |
| Mahabharata | Maharishi Ved Vyasa | World's longest epic poem; contains the Bhagavad Gita |
| Arthashastra | Kautilya (Chanakya/Vishnugupta) | Treatise on statecraft, economics and military strategy |
| Indica | Megasthenes | Greek ambassador's account of the Mauryan court under Chandragupta Maurya |
| Mudrarakshasa | Vishakhadatta | Sanskrit play about Chandragupta Maurya's rise to power |
| Abhijnanashakuntalam | Kalidasa | Classical Sanskrit play; Kalidasa also wrote Meghaduta and Raghuvamsha |
| Harshacharita | Banabhatta | Biography of King Harshavardhana |
| Kadambari | Banabhatta | Classical Sanskrit prose romance |
| Rajatarangini | Kalhana | Historical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir |
| Ashtadhyayi | Panini | Foundational text of Sanskrit grammar |
| Panchatantra | Vishnu Sharma | Collection of animal fables with moral lessons |
| Buddhacharita | Ashvaghosha | Epic biography of Gautama Buddha in Sanskrit |
Medieval and Court Chronicles
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Baburnama | Babur | Autobiography/memoirs of the first Mughal emperor |
| Akbarnama | Abul Fazl | Official chronicle of Akbar's reign; includes the Ain-i-Akbari |
| Ain-i-Akbari | Abul Fazl | Detailed administrative record of the Mughal Empire under Akbar |
| Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri | Jahangir | Autobiographical memoirs of Mughal emperor Jahangir |
| Humayun-nama | Gulbadan Begum | Biography of Emperor Humayun, written by his half-sister |
| Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi | Ziauddin Barani | Chronicle of the Delhi Sultanate under several rulers |
Autobiographies and Writings of Modern Indian Leaders
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| The Story of My Experiments with Truth | Mahatma Gandhi | Gandhi's autobiography |
| Hind Swaraj | Mahatma Gandhi | Gandhi's treatise on self-rule and critique of modern civilisation |
| The Discovery of India | Jawaharlal Nehru | Written during imprisonment; traces India's civilisational history |
| Glimpses of World History | Jawaharlal Nehru | Letters written to daughter Indira from prison |
| An Autobiography (Toward Freedom) | Jawaharlal Nehru | Nehru's personal memoirs |
| India Wins Freedom | Maulana Abul Kalam Azad | Account of the freedom movement and Partition |
| My Truth | Indira Gandhi | Reflections by India's first woman Prime Minister |
| The Indian Struggle | Subhas Chandra Bose | Bose's account of the Indian independence movement |
| Annihilation of Caste | Dr. B.R. Ambedkar | Critique of the caste system in Indian society |
| Buddha and His Dhamma | Dr. B.R. Ambedkar | Ambedkar's interpretation of Buddhist philosophy |
| The Ramayana as told by Aubrey Menen; and Wings of Fire | A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Wings of Fire) | Kalam's autobiography, co-written with Arun Tiwari |
| India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium | A.P.J. Abdul Kalam | Kalam's vision document for India's development |
Modern Indian Literature
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Gitanjali | Rabindranath Tagore | Won Tagore the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, the first Asian to receive it |
| Gora | Rabindranath Tagore | Bengali novel exploring nationalism and identity |
| Anandamath | Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay | Contains the song "Vande Mataram" |
| Devdas | Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay | Widely adapted Bengali novel |
| Godaan | Munshi Premchand | Landmark Hindi novel depicting rural Indian life |
| Gaban | Munshi Premchand | Hindi novel exploring greed and morality |
| Train to Pakistan | Khushwant Singh | Novel set during the Partition of India |
| Midnight's Children | Salman Rushdie | Won the Booker Prize (1981) and later the "Booker of Bookers" |
| The God of Small Things | Arundhati Roy | Won the Booker Prize in 1997 |
| A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | One of the longest novels published in a single volume in English |
| The White Tiger | Aravind Adiga | Won the Booker Prize in 2008 |
| Untouchable | Mulk Raj Anand | Early Indian English novel addressing caste discrimination |
| Malgudi Days | R.K. Narayan | Collection of short stories set in the fictional town of Malgudi |
| The Guide | R.K. Narayan | Won the Sahitya Akademi Award |
Books by Indian Statesmen and Economists
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| India After Gandhi | Ramachandra Guha | Comprehensive history of post-independence India |
| The Argumentative Indian | Amartya Sen | Essays on Indian history, culture and identity by the Nobel laureate economist |
| Development as Freedom | Amartya Sen | Explores the relationship between development and human freedom |
| India Unbound | Gurcharan Das | Chronicles India's economic transformation |
| The Idea of Justice | Amartya Sen | Philosophical work on justice and fairness |
Major World Literary Classics
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | Epic Russian novel set during the Napoleonic era |
| Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Russian novel exploring morality and guilt |
| Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet | William Shakespeare | Among Shakespeare's best-known plays |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | Classic English novel of manners |
| Great Expectations, Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | Major works of Victorian English literature |
| The Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemingway | Won the Pulitzer Prize (1953); Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 |
| 1984 and Animal Farm | George Orwell | Dystopian and allegorical political novels |
| The Origin of Species | Charles Darwin | Foundational work on the theory of evolution by natural selection |
| A Brief History of Time | Stephen Hawking | Popular science book on cosmology |
| The Communist Manifesto | Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels | Foundational political pamphlet of Marxist theory |
| Das Kapital | Karl Marx | Critical analysis of political economy and capitalism |
| The Prince | Niccolo Machiavelli | Renaissance-era political treatise |
| Utopia | Sir Thomas More | Depicts an imagined ideal society |
| Divine Comedy | Dante Alighieri | Epic poem describing a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise |
| Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes | Often cited as one of the first modern novels |
Foreign Biographies and Political Writings Relevant to Indian History
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom at Midnight | Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre | Account of India's independence and Partition |
| The Wonder That Was India | A.L. Basham | Classic survey of ancient Indian history and culture |
| An Autobiography | Jawaharlal Nehru (also called "Toward Freedom") | Written during Nehru's imprisonment in the 1930s |
| Indian Summer | Alex von Tunzelmann | Account of the end of British rule in India |
Notable Nobel Laureates in Literature (India-Connected)
- Rabindranath Tagore (1913): The first non-European and first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, for his collection of poems Gitanjali (Song Offerings).
- V.S. Naipaul (2001): British writer of Indian (Trinidadian-Indian) descent, known for works such as A House for Mr Biswas and India: A Wounded Civilization; awarded for his body of work.
Well-Known Pen Names and Titles
| Real Name | Pen Name / Title |
|---|---|
| Rabindranath Tagore | Gurudev |
| Mahatma Gandhi | Bapu / Father of the Nation |
| Subhas Chandra Bose | Netaji |
| Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay | Known for realist Bengali fiction |
| Munshi Premchand | Original name Dhanpat Rai Srivastava |
How to Approach This Topic for Exams
Since the range of possible book-author pairs is vast, focus your revision on three tiers: first, ancient Indian classical texts (Ramayana, Mahabharata, Arthashastra); second, freedom-struggle-era writings and autobiographies of national leaders, since these are heavily favoured in SSC-pattern exams; and third, well-known Booker Prize and Nobel Prize-winning works, since award-linked books are commonly cross-tested alongside the Awards and Honours chapter. Building strong recall for these three tiers covers the overwhelming majority of book-author questions that actually appear in SSC GD and RPF Constable papers.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Ramayana — Valmiki; Mahabharata — Ved Vyasa; Arthashastra — Kautilya (Chanakya).
- Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 — the first for an Asian.
- The Story of My Experiments with Truth is Gandhi's autobiography; India Wins Freedom is by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
- The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History were both written by Jawaharlal Nehru during imprisonment.
- Wings of Fire is A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's autobiography, co-authored with Arun Tiwari.
- Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy) and The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) are all Booker Prize-winning novels by Indian-origin authors.
- Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari were written by Abul Fazl, court historian of Emperor Akbar.
- Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto are foundational texts by Karl Marx (the latter co-authored with Friedrich Engels).
Practice MCQs
- Who is the author of the Ramayana?
(a) Ved Vyasa (b) Valmiki (c) Kalidasa (d) Kalhana
Answer: (b) Valmiki. The Ramayana is attributed to Maharishi Valmiki. - The Arthashastra, a treatise on statecraft and economics, was written by whom?
(a) Panini (b) Kautilya (c) Banabhatta (d) Megasthenes
Answer: (b) Kautilya. Also known as Chanakya or Vishnugupta, he advised Chandragupta Maurya. - Who wrote "The Story of My Experiments with Truth"?
(a) Jawaharlal Nehru (b) Mahatma Gandhi (c) B.R. Ambedkar (d) Sardar Patel
Answer: (b) Mahatma Gandhi. This is Gandhi's autobiography. - "Gitanjali," for which Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913, means which of the following?
(a) Song Offerings (b) Morning Songs (c) Discovery of Truth (d) Wings of Fire
Answer: (a) Song Offerings. Tagore became the first Asian Nobel laureate in Literature for this collection. - "India Wins Freedom" was authored by whom?
(a) Jawaharlal Nehru (b) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (c) Sardar Patel (d) Rajendra Prasad
Answer: (b) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. It gives his account of the freedom movement and Partition. - Who wrote "Akbarnama" and "Ain-i-Akbari"?
(a) Abul Fazl (b) Babur (c) Ziauddin Barani (d) Gulbadan Begum
Answer: (a) Abul Fazl. He was the court historian of Emperor Akbar. - "Wings of Fire" is the autobiography of which Indian personality?
(a) Homi Bhabha (b) A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (c) Vikram Sarabhai (d) C.V. Raman
Answer: (b) A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Co-authored with Arun Tiwari. - Which novel by Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize in 1997?
(a) Midnight's Children (b) The White Tiger (c) The God of Small Things (d) A Suitable Boy
Answer: (c) The God of Small Things. It was Roy's debut novel. - "Das Kapital" is a major work by which thinker?
(a) Adam Smith (b) Karl Marx (c) John Maynard Keynes (d) David Ricardo
Answer: (b) Karl Marx. It is a critical analysis of capitalism and political economy. - "Godaan," a landmark Hindi novel of rural life, was written by whom?
(a) Munshi Premchand (b) Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (c) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (d) R.K. Narayan
Answer: (a) Munshi Premchand. Premchand's original name was Dhanpat Rai Srivastava. - "Rajatarangini," a historical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, was authored by whom?
(a) Kalhana (b) Banabhatta (c) Kalidasa (d) Vishakhadatta
Answer: (a) Kalhana. It is regarded as one of the earliest historical texts of ancient India. - "Development as Freedom" and "The Argumentative Indian" were written by which Nobel laureate economist?
(a) Abhijit Banerjee (b) Amartya Sen (c) Raghuram Rajan (d) Jagdish Bhagwati
Answer: (b) Amartya Sen. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998.
More Notable Indian Regional-Language Literature
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Kanthapura | Raja Rao | Early Indian English novel depicting Gandhian influence on a South Indian village |
| Chemmeen | Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai | Malayalam novel about a fishing community, won the Sahitya Akademi Award |
| Yayati | V.S. Khandekar | Marathi novel based on Mahabharata mythology; won the Jnanpith Award |
| Chidambara | K.V. Puttappa (Kuvempu) | Kannada poetry collection; Kuvempu was the first Kannada Jnanpith awardee |
| Shri Ramayana Darshanam | Kuvempu | Kannada epic poem reinterpreting the Ramayana |
| Chokher Bali | Rabindranath Tagore | Bengali novel exploring social and personal relationships |
| Do Bailon Ki Katha | Munshi Premchand | Short story that inspired the film "Heera Moti" |
Notable Playwrights and Their Works
| Play | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Andha Yug | Dharamvir Bharati | Hindi verse play set at the end of the Mahabharata war |
| Tughlaq | Girish Karnad | Kannada play about Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq |
| Hayavadana | Girish Karnad | Kannada play exploring themes of identity |
| Skylark (Ashadh Ka Ek Din) | Mohan Rakesh | Landmark modern Hindi play |
Books on Science, Philosophy and Society by Notable Authors
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | Popular work tracing the history of the human species |
| The Selfish Gene | Richard Dawkins | Popularises the gene-centred view of evolution |
| Silent Spring | Rachel Carson | Landmark environmental science book credited with sparking the modern environmental movement |
| A Passage to India | E.M. Forster | Novel set in colonial India, exploring British-Indian relations |
| Kim | Rudyard Kipling | Novel set in colonial India; Kipling also wrote The Jungle Book |
| The Jungle Book | Rudyard Kipling | Set in the forests of central India; Kipling won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 |
Notable Journalists, Historians and Non-Fiction Writers on India
| Book | Author | Note |
|---|---|---|
| The Discovery of India | Jawaharlal Nehru | Also adapted into the television series "Bharat Ek Khoj" |
| Modern India | Sumit Sarkar | Widely used academic history of colonial and post-colonial India |
| India: A History | John Keay | Broad narrative history of the Indian subcontinent |
| The Last Mughal | William Dalrymple | Account of the fall of the Mughal dynasty and the 1857 revolt |
| Freedom at Midnight | Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre | Popular narrative history of India's independence and Partition |
Understanding Award-Linked Books
Several books tested in this section are notable specifically because they won a major literary award, which links this chapter directly to the Awards and Honours chapter. The Booker Prize (Midnight's Children, The God of Small Things, The White Tiger), the Nobel Prize in Literature (Gitanjali), and the Jnanpith Award (Yayati, Chidambara/Shri Ramayana Darshanam) are the three award categories most frequently cross-tested with book-author questions in SSC-pattern exams. When you revise the Awards chapter, it is worth revisiting this list side by side.
Frequently Confused Author Pairs
- Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (wrote Anandamath, containing Vande Mataram) is often confused with Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (wrote Devdas) — they are two different Bengali novelists with similar surnames.
- Jawaharlal Nehru's three major prison writings — Glimpses of World History, The Discovery of India, and his autobiography — are sometimes mixed up with each other in terms of which was written in which jail term; for exam purposes it is enough to know all three are Nehru's works from his imprisonment years.
- Girish Karnad wrote in Kannada (Tughlaq, Hayavadana), while Kuvempu, also writing in Kannada, is a separate author known for Shri Ramayana Darshanam — do not merge the two.
- Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book, Kim) should not be confused with E.M. Forster (A Passage to India) — both wrote colonial-era novels set in India but are distinct British authors.
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