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Priyasha Mukhopadhyay wins Yale’s 2025 international book prize
Indian-origin scholar recognized for research on everyday texts in the British Empire and their impact.
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Pranavi Sharma - Tue, 09, Sep 2025
- 01:40 EDT
- 105
Priyasha Mukhopadhyay. / Mara Lavitt/Yale
Indian-origin scholar Priyasha Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Professor of English at Yale University, has been awarded the 2025 Gaddis Smith International Book Prize by the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. The prize recognizes her book, 'Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire (Princeton University Press, 2024)'.
The MacMillan Center announced the awards on Sept. 2, noting that its International Book Prizes are among Yale’s most prestigious honors for scholarly publishing. Established in 2004, the prizes celebrate faculty writing on global history and empire. Winners receive a research appointment at the MacMillan Center and $5,000 in funding for future scholarship.
In her book, Mukhopadhyay examines how ordinary texts such as manuals, government documents, and almanacs shaped the political and imaginative lives of readers in colonial South Asia. The prize committee described her work as “deeply researched, deft in its style, innovative in its analysis, and a model of interdisciplinary scholarship.”
ALSO READ: Yale honors Indian Asst. Prof. Priyasha Mukhopadhyay
Explaining the significance of her study, Mukhopadhyay shows how “even partial, resisted, or utilitarian reading practices became central to the ways individuals navigated and responded to imperial rule.”
This is the second recognition for her book in recent months. In June, the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences awarded Mukhopadhyay the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize, which honors outstanding scholarship in the humanities.
Mukhopadhyay holds a PhD in English from the University of Oxford, and earlier completed her Bachelor’s, Master’s, and MPhil degrees from the University of Delhi.
The 2025 Gustav Ranis International Book Prize was awarded to Professor Paul Benton for his work on global history. Last year’s recipients included Stephanie Newell for research on West African literature and Egor Lazarev for a study on law and state-building in Chechnya.
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