INAUGURAL MONSOON BOOK PRIZES 2025 WINNERS

ATLANTA, GA – February 18, 2025 – Georgia State University and the German University of Technology in Oman (Gutech) are proud to announce the winners of the inaugural Monsoon Book Prizes. The three prizes encourage and celebrate the research, production, and publication of accessible, high-quality, and original scholarship on the dynamic and fluid cultural zone of the Indian Ocean. Works awarded propel dialogue about the region making a core part of the conversation in academia.

The Monsoon Book Prizes aim to support advanced scholarship in three categories, each with a $4,000 award:

• The Monsoon Book Prize in History
• The Monsoon Book Prize in Archaeology and Anthropology
• The Monsoon Book Prize in Political Economy

The winners of the 2025 Monsoon Book Prizes are:

• The Monsoon Book Prize in Political Economy: Dr. Seema Alavi for her book Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire (Harvard University Press).
• The Monsoon Book Prize in History: Dr. Nathaniel Mathews for his book Zanzibar Was a Country: Exile and Citizenship between East Africa and the Gulf (University of California Press).
• The Monsoon Book Prize in Anthropology: Drs. Jim Sykes and Julia Byl for their edited volume Sounding the Indian Ocean: Musical Circulations in the Afro-Asiatic Seascape (University of California Press).

Honorable Mentions:

• Political Economy: Dr. Jatin Dua for Captured at Sea: Piracy and Protection in the Indian Ocean (University of California Press).
• History: Dr. Michael Laffan for Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1885-1945 (Columbia University Press).
• Anthropology: Dr. Michael Lambek for Island in the Stream: An Ethnographic History of Mayotte (University of Toronto Press).

The awards ceremony will be held on April 10 at the Office of International Initiatives at Georgia State University in Atlanta. The event will feature lectures by each of the prize winners and will foster interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars and graduate students.

For more information, visit Monsoon Book Prizes .

The Office of International Initiatives builds interdisciplinary synergies and expands global opportunities where faculty, staff, students and our Atlanta-area colleagues can collaborate, innovate and form engaged partnerships with far-reaching impact. To explore collaborative opportunities with the Office of International Initiatives, click here.