Book Review ‘To Hell and Back: Humans of COVID’ by Barkha Dutt
Notable columnist and writer Barkha Dutt’s most recent book ‘To Hell and Back: Humans of COVID’ narratives the human story of the pandemic, which caused extraordinary pulverization and asserted anyplace somewhere in the range of 3 and 5 million Indian lives. Barkha Dutt won the AutHer Grants 2023 in Non-fiction category for this book.
At the point when India’s lockdown was first declared in March 2020, Barkha embraced a progression of travels and recorded the human accounts of the pandemic. Also, through this excursion, she portrays the account of what India was meant for by the pandemic, how the country managed it, and it impacted individuals from varying backgrounds.
From transient specialists to lawmakers, Barkha covers the genuine records of these individuals. In this book, she not just expounds on what Coronavirus meant for us everything except likewise uncovered the well-established imbalances of class, rank, and orientation in our general public which were amplified during the pandemic.
In this book, Barkha transcends the Coronavirus measurements and on second thought centers around human stories which make them so-genuine and engaging. The stories that she describes in this book are of difficulties, flexibility, misfortune, and trust. This is a sign of the dangerous pandemic in 2020 and 2021, which impacted and shook all of us.

Barkha Dutt, one of India’s best known broadcast journalists, with over 20 years of experience, is the Founder-Editor of digital platform Mojo Story and a columnist with the Washington Post and the Hindustan Times.
Dutt, an Emmy-nominated reporter, is the winner of over 40 national and international awards. She has been recognised twice as Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, and been honoured with the Padmashri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour. She has been chosen as an Asia Society ASIA 21 Fellow as well as a Meera and Vikram Gandhi Fellow at the Brown University’s Watson Institute.
Known for her ground reporting from some of the toughest hotspots in the world, Dutt most recently earned global acclaim with her relentless frontline reporting of the COVID pandemic over 16 months throughout the world’s biggest lockdown. Named by Vogue as a COVID Warrior, she won the US-based Emergent Ventures India COVID Prize for her reportage as well as eight awards at the 2021 News Broadcasters Association Awards in India.
She is the author of This Unquiet Land: Stories from India’s Fault Lines and is presently working on her second book.
Dutt studied at St. Stephens College, Delhi and Columbia University, New York.
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