It was the most controversial book about an Indian business family not to be read in the 1990s. And the author, Hamish McDonald, is hoping that he has better luck with the sequel, Mahabharata in Polyester: The making of the world’s richest brothers and their feud.
New Delhi-based publisher Roli Books Pvt. Ltd is to publish the book, a fact confirmed by the firm’s director Priya Kapoor.
McDonald, a former Far Eastern Economic Review journalist who was based in India, started work on what was to become The Polyester Prince, a book on the late Dhirubhai Ambani, with the sanction of the Ambani family.
The author and the family, however, differed on the approach and the book became an “unauthorized” biography of sorts. It was published internationally by Allen and Unwin Pty. Ltd (Australia) in September 1999, and HarperCollins secured the India rights for it.
The Ambanis didn’t think the book would do them any good and approached a court in India against it. The court sent a notice to HarperCollins, which admitted before it that the firm had no intention of publishing the book in India. Contrary to popular perception, there was (and is) no ban on the book.
Full report here Mint
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