A high stakes feline translocation

Some books seem fit for screen adaptation. Bringing the Cheetah Back to India is one of them as it has all the elements of a gripping political thriller: high-stakes diplomacy, bureaucratic hurdles, ecological ambition, international negotiations, swings between frustration and triumph, and, at its heart, one of the world’s most charismatic animals.

Former diplomat Prashant Agrawal transforms Project Cheetah into an engrossing narrative that reads like a fast-paced thriller. Written from the perspective of India’s former High Commissioner to Namibia, the book offers an insider’s account of how diplomacy and conservation came together to bring the cheetah back to India after an absence of seven decades.

Agrawal introduces readers not only to the project but also to the animals themselves, detailing their names, personalities, genetic backgrounds and behaviour. By the end, they are no longer anonymous predators but, as the author describes them, the “supermodels of the cat world.”