Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld's book Great Souls: Mahatama Gandhi and His Struggles with India was published to much critical attention and controversy last year. The book was banned in Gujarat even before it reached bookstores.
In conversation with Ananya Vajpeyi as part of The Caravan Conversations series cohosted with The New York Times' India Ink, Joseph Lelyveld talked about his views on Gandhi, the Mahatma's time in South Africa and the philosophy he began to develop while there. Over the course of the conversation, Lelyveld spoke to Gandhi's disappointment on 15 August 1947, and the insight gained from humanising a figure who is so often deified. Former executive editor of The New York Times, the author also discussed the process of writing the book and the four years of extensive research that took him across India and to South Africa. The Caravan hosted the conversation on 11 February 2012 in Delhi.
