New Delhi: An upcoming book by renowned biochemist Pranay Lal brings together science, history and storytelling to paint a fascinating picture of viruses as a major actor not only in human civilisation but also in the human body.
Published by Penguin India, ‘Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses’ by Pranay Lal will be released on 3 November on ‘SoftCover’, ThePrint’s e-venue to release select non-fiction books.
Viruses, says Lal, aren’t considered a life form at all though everything about viruses is extreme, including the reactions they evoke.
In the book, Lal argues that for every truism about viruses, the opposite is also true. Whether we see viruses as alive or dead, life-affirming or life-threatening, there is an ineluctable beauty, even a certain elegance in the way viruses go about their lives. In fact, so complex and diverse is the world of viruses that it merits being called a kingdom itself.
With rare photographs, paintings, illustrations and anecdotes, Invisible Empire makes for a magnificent and extremely relevant book, especially when we’re examining the role of viruses in the time of the Covid pandemic.
Lal’s first book A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent was also very well received. It had won the 2017 Tata Literature Prize and The World Book Fair award among other literary awards. It was also named among the 50 must-read books about India since independence by Mint Lounge.
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