Awards

• Long-listed for PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award 2019 (United States)
• Short-listed for Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya NIF Book Prize 2019 (United States)

Overview

What do India’s millennials want and how are they transforming one of the youngest, most populous nations in the world? More than half of India is under the age of twenty-five, but India’s millennials are nothing like their counterparts in the West. In a country that is increasingly characterized by ambition and crushing limitations, this is a generation that cannot—and will not—be defined on anything but their own terms. They are wealth-chasers, hucksters, and fame-hunters, desperate to escape their narrow prospects. They are the dreamers. Award-winning journalist Snigdha Poonam traveled through the small towns of northern India to investigate the phenomenon that is India’s Generation Y. From dubious entrepreneurs to political aspirants, from starstruck strivers to masterly swindlers, these are the clickbaiters who create viral content for Facebook and the internet scammers who stalk you at home, but they are also defiant student union leaders determined to transform campus life. Poonam made her way—on carts and buses, in cars and trucks—through India’s badlands to uncover a theater of toxic masculinity, a spirited brew of ambition, and a hunger for change that is bound to drive the future of the country.

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9780674988170

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Reviews

Poonam has a gift for finding the most telling stories of our time and constructs a powerful argument...We encounter two sets of young Indians. With virtually no help, one is determined to build India. The other will break it.--Sonia Faleiro Financial Times (01/05/2018) An intelligent and deeply reported journey into the lives of India's young people, and the hunger that drives them.--Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta The Hindu (01/20/2018) [A] perceptive, useful book on an important topic...Poonam is clear-eyed on the challenges the youth of the Indian population present...These young people are hitting adulthood with the cultural values of their grandparents--socially conservative, sexually timid, God-fearing--but the life goals of American teenagers: money and fame, Poonam points out. They are the most global young Indians ever, but with the narrowest ideas of what it means to be Indian.--Jason Burke The Guardian An enlightening and powerful examination into the absorbing world of India's youth... Rich in detail and engagingly crafted, Dreamers is a compelling read.--Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire Diligently reported and crisply written, Dreamers is an eye-opening guide to India's troubling present--and future. No recent book has so astutely charted the treacherous Indian gap between extravagant illusion and grim reality.--Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger A brilliant dive into the seething psyche of India's small-town youth: a mayhem of sexuality, sentimentality, and insatiable hunger for success--at whatever price.--Sunil Khilnani, author of The Idea of India

An enlightening and powerful examination into the absorbing world of India's youth... Rich in detail and engagingly crafted, Dreamers is a compelling read.--Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire Diligently reported and crisply written, Dreamers is an eye-opening guide to India's troubling present--and future. No recent book has so astutely charted the treacherous Indian gap between extravagant illusion and grim reality.--Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger A brilliant dive into the seething psyche of India's small-town youth: a mayhem of sexuality, sentimentality, and insatiable hunger for success--at whatever price.--Sunil Khilnani, author of The Idea of India

Author Information

Snigdha Poonam is a journalist based in New Delhi. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, and Granta. She currently reports on national affairs at the Hindustan Times. She won the 2017 Journalist of Change award for a work of reportage that appeared on Huffington Post. Dreamers is her first book.

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