Manu S Pillai is the author of the award-winning The Ivory Throne:Chronicles of the House of Travancore (HarperCollins India, 2015). Formerly Chief of Staff to Dr Shashi Tharoor MP, he’s worked at the House of
Lords in Britain and with the BBC on their Incarnations history series.Written over six years and researched in three continents, The Ivory Throne is Manu’s first book and tells a social and political history of Kerala
through the life and times of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, the last female Maharajah of Travancore. Manu is also text contributor to Serena Chopra’s Bhutan Echoes (Tasveer, 2016), and is a columnist for Mint Lounge. His previous writings have appeared in The Hindu, Open Magazine, and other publications
DNA in its review of The Ivory Throne, called it a brilliant debut & an exceptional work; further adding that the achievement falls into perspective when you realise that Pillai is just 25 years old.
Outlook magazine described the book as a clear-headed history well researched and well written, also terming it as a new point of view to the study of Kerala.
The book won the 2016 Tata Prize for best first work of non-fiction and the 2017 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar.