Johns Hopkins Scholar Anand Pandian Wins 2026 Zócalo Book Prize
Photo Credit: Will Kirk, Johns Hopkins University
India-West News Desk
LOS ANGELES, CA — Indian American anthropologist Anand Pandian has been named the recipient of the 2026 Zócalo Book Prize for ‘Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down.’
Pandian will be honored at Zócalo Public Square’s annual Book Prize event on June 25 at the ASU California Center Broadway in Los Angeles. The program, titled ‘America, Can We Take Down the Walls Between Us?’, will feature a lecture by Pandian followed by a conversation with political strategist Mike Madrid, co-founder of The Lincoln Project.
The book grew out of travels Pandian undertook across the United States after becoming concerned about growing divisions in American public life during the 2016 election year. Visiting communities across the country, he sought to better understand the forces driving social and political polarization and the efforts underway to bridge those divides.
“Some years ago, I realized I barely knew this country where I was born and where I’ve spent most of my life,” Pandian said in a statement released by Zócalo Public Square. “I set out to understand the impasses that we remain caught in as a country as well as what it would take to work beyond inherited histories of violence and indifference.”
He said the project introduced him to people working toward “a more just and humane future,” adding, “There’s a reason yet for hope in these United States.”
The Zócalo Book Prize, which includes a $10,000 award, is presented annually to a nonfiction book published in the United States that advances understanding of community, social cohesion, and the forces that strengthen or weaken human connections.
Pandian joins previous recipients including Danielle Allen, Jonathan Haidt, Héctor Tobar, and Jean-Martin Bauer.
Pandian is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University and author of ‘A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times.’ He is currently working on a project examining global efforts to build a zero-waste future, including research in India.
