From Jawaharlal Nehru's subtle handing over of the political mantle to his daughter Indira Gandhi to BR Ambedkar's fight for the untouchables, or his proposed Hindu Code Bill being seen as "wicked interference with the age-old Hindu personal laws of divine provenance", there is hardly any political event of significance that has escaped Verma's attention. . . . The gentle and effortless unravelling of these complex minds, and the timelessness of this tragic-comic novel by Verma, who won a Sahitya Award for a translated work in 2004, deserves praise. (Hindustan Times) Devesh Verma's debut novel, The Politician, though, exquisitely upends this dominant model of the political novel that oscillates between fact and fiction and highlights the success and skulduggery of corrupt and ruthless politicians. With well-fleshed-out characters, Devesh Verma weaves a gripping narrative around a flawed hero's quest for unbridled power. (Frontline)

Devesh Verma was associated with TV journalism for over twenty-two years before he turned to fiction writing. In 2004, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his translation, from Urdu to Hindi, of Sakhtiyat, Pas-Sakhtiyat Aur Mashriqi Sheriyat, an important literary and cultural theory text. His first novel, The Politician, was published by Penguin Random House India in 2021.