Reading and writing kept my spirit unbroken: Anand Teltumbde
Frontline / by Anand Teltumbde
The scholar and activist on the books that shaped his politics, how reading 179 books in jail kept him intellectually alive, and more.
Anand Teltumbde is a scholar, writer, and public intellectual whose work spans technology, management, and social justice. He has authored 33 books and contributed extensively to leading journals and periodicals, offering sharp theoretical insights on caste, oppression, and contemporary India. As a committed activist, he has played a significant role in India’s civil rights movement.
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The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir
Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.
Also read:
▪ ‘I’m going to live to 185’: Anand Teltumbde remembers his friend Stan Swamy in his memoir (Scroll.in | Anand Teltumbde | Sep 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Anand Teltumbde reflects on his arrest and incarceration (THE POLIS PROJECT | Anand Teltumbde | June 2024)