20 Must-Read Historical Fiction Books Set in India

Set in 18th century Lucknow, Memory of Light is the story of a whirlwind romance between two courtesans, Nafis Bai and Chapla Bai. Atmospheric and wealthy in historic particulars, this e-book lets the central queer relationship breathe in an India that was much more open to same-sex relationships earlier than colonizers’ Victorian requirements of morality overcame the Indian psyche.

In this sweeping epic written initially in Urdu, we get an evocative image of the creative, cultural, and social life in the final days of the Mughal empire. Spanning throughout north India — from the deserts of Rajasthan to Kashmir and the Mughal capital metropolis of Delhi — the character on the middle a charismatic, artistic and unbiased lady, Wazir Khannam, who is decided to train each little bit of her restricted company as a lady in a patriarchal society.

Written by honored Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay, Those Days is a complete portrait of Nineteenth century Kolkata. The story follows a number of actual and fictional characters and chronicles how Indian reformers, thinkers, educators, and writers make a metropolis laid down for his or her colonial masters their very own. You can comply with this up with the writer’s equally participating epic historic fiction in regards to the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Bengal, First Light, additionally deftly translated by Aruna Chakravarty.

This is the primary e-book in Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy. The trilogy is called after the ship it’s centered round, so the situation of the motion will not be restricted to India. Set in the Nineteenth century simply earlier than the Opium wars, it strikes from India to the uneven waters of the Indian ocean to the shores of China. It includes a assorted solid of characters whose tales present a glance into totally different aspects of the sprawling, interconnected internet of colonial techniques in this area and time. The prose is exceptionally immersive, and the trilogy is certain to maintain its readers hooked for a very long time.

Set in the northeastern area of India that’s usually uncared for in nationwide discourse, and based mostly partially on true occasions, Mamang Dai’s e-book takes place in the mid-Nineteenth century when the British try to make inroads right into a area that’s populated by totally different tribes with wealthy cultural traditions of their very own. Through the tales of a pair of star-crossed lovers belonging to totally different tribes, and a Christian priest decided to stroll to Tibet, the e-book sheds mild on the distinctive and sophisticated experiences of this area in the course of the early days of colonialism.

In Belonging, Umi Sinha chooses to have a look at a interval in the historical past of India by the factors of view of three generations of a British household that calls India dwelling, regardless of being a part of the colonial equipment. It covers the years main as much as the mutiny of 1857, that since then got here to be often known as the First War of Independence in India, the violent reprisals after the revolt, all the way in which to the quick aftermath of World War I. The e-book paints compelling, nuanced portraits of its major characters — Lila Langdon, her father, and her grandfather — as they navigate household secrets and techniques and grapple with the violence inherent in the colonial system that they’re a part of.

Perveen Mistry, the heroine of Sujata Massey’s thriller sequence, is impressed by India’s first lady lawyer Cornelia Sorabji. Mistry will get embroiled in a homicide thriller involving a rich Muslim household in Nineteen Twenties Bombay when she goes to analyze a suspicious will as a part of her father’s regulation agency. Alongside a compelling thriller, the e-book additionally has fascinating descriptions of the society and tradition of early Nineteenth century Mumbai, and explores ladies’s place in totally different spiritual communities as effectively the heroine’s conflicting emotions in regards to the British colonizers.

This e-book is my inspiration for this checklist. It was my favourite learn of final yr, and I used to be upset that not many individuals appear to have learn it. It is ready in the Andaman islands in the course of the Second World War. Through the occasions that unfold at these remoted islands, and the lives of a number of standpoint characters — together with the 2 kids of a convict exiled to the islands, a Burmese boy whose household made the islands their dwelling over a number of generations, and an unnamed lady political prisoner — the writer gives invaluable insights into the bigger social and political background of the subcontinent below British colonial rule. Immersive, well-researched, fantastically written, and highlighting marginalized voices that may solely discover full expression in fiction, that is historic fiction at its finest.

The partition of India was one of many bloodiest occasions in trendy historical past, displacing and killing giant variety of folks on either side of the brand new border, and completely figuring out the course of politics in the subcontinent for the longer term. Bapsi Sidhwa’s e-book zooms in on this horrific occasion by the eyes of Lenny, a precocious Parsi youngster in Lahore in present-day Pakistan. As the partition looms, we see how Lenny’s world, in which her Hindu ayyah and her circle of admirers from totally different religions have an vital place, is upended. This e-book, with its deal with a small set of characters, is ready to underline with chilling readability the most important horror of partition — the event of murderous hatred between individuals who had lived facet by facet in relative peace for generations.

This e-book is an intergenerational saga a couple of household of medical doctors in Kolkata and spans a century, beginning in 1860. It is a narrative of human helplessness, perseverance, and innovation because the medical doctors in the story, and town of Kolkata, wrestle by quite a few waves of epidemics and illness in an environment of maximum prejudice and evolving medical data.

Set in a small village in Assam in the years earlier than and instantly after independence, this e-book is a couple of younger man named Gojen from a household sitting on the decrease rungs of the caste ladder. Through his interactions with the social and political techniques of his village, we see the event of the caste-, class-, and religion-based fissures in the liberty motion that finally culminate into the spiritual violence of the partition. This is a steadfastly humane take a look at complicated problems with identification, political borders, and humanity, in context of the rising significance of divisive politics in the nation.

This e-book is an excellent portrayal of the internal lifetime of a artistic lady in World War II period India. Gayatri has the braveness to acknowledge the unhappiness in her marriage and her ardour for artwork, which leads her to make a sophisticated alternative for herself that lands her in Bali. The readers’ window to her life is thru letters that her son Myshkin discovers effectively into maturity, after having needed to take care of the implications of his mom’s alternative all his life. Intimate and fantastically written, the story can be testomony to how the momentous occasions in historical past can derail essentially the most well-laid of private plans.

I got here throughout this e-book by probability whereas looking {the catalogue} of Zubaan, an unbiased feminist publishing home based mostly in India. It is ready in the mid-Nineteenth century in Shillong in northeastern India and Punjab, and follows three generations of girls. The narrative paints a gorgeous, melancholy, image of the internal lives of girls who really feel claustrophobic throughout the stifling confines of domesticity, towards an unassumingly however successfully evoked historic backdrop.

This Booker prize successful e-book wants no introduction, and is an apparent go-to in case you are in search of historic fiction books set in India. Salim Sinai, alongside 1,000 different kids born at midnight of the fifteenth of August in 1947 as India attained independence, are born with particular magical powers and are related to one another by telepathy. As Salim grows up, the trajectory of his life begins mirroring the trajectory of the nation that he was born in. Rushdie is a magician with phrases, and this e-book really is a masterpiece of fabulist historic fiction. If you’ve already learn this one, Rushdie’s latest novel, Victory City, is predicated on the medieval empire of Vijayanagar in southern India, can be an interesting learn.

Forget the love story that this e-book is meant to be about (I’ve some Feelings about how that ended). Read Vikram Seth’s masterpiece for all of the fascinating not-so-major characters that individuals the story, and for his sensible, witty observations about society and politics of mid-Twentieth century, still-newly-independent India. The writing is taut sufficient to maintain readers engaged and all all through its appreciable girth — with this e-book, the journey is extra vital that the vacation spot — even when the premise of 1 truthful maiden selecting her soulmate out of a number of potential suitors may need had you believing in any other case.

The e-book derives its title from the marshy lowlands of Kolkata. A fantastically written story about two brothers with drastically totally different destinies, it explores themes of loss, responsibility, and familial love towards the backdrop of town in the Nineteen Sixties, because the Naxalite motion takes over the educated youth of town with revolutionary fervor. This is a comparatively new, well-written exploration of a time that has been written about extensively in Bengali literature, however might not be a well-known topic for worldwide audiences.

Following the lives of Malayali immigrants from the southern state of Kerala to Delhi, the story paperwork vital occasions of the second half of the Twentieth century. Through the factors of view of its major characters, we see the Indo-China battle and the unrest of the Nineteen Sixties, the Indo-Pak battle and the nationwide emergency of the Seventies, and the anti-Sikh riots of the Eighties. In telling the story of those traumatic occasions from current historical past, the writer additionally fantastically evokes the syncretic soul of town.

This e-book,can be set towards the backdrop of the political unrest in late Nineteen Sixties Bengal. The story is a household saga that includes totally different generations of the Ghosh household. The politics of a rapidly disintegrating joint household mirror the political turmoil of the world outdoors the four-storied home that the household occupies.

Abraham Verghese’s new novel spans many of the Twentieth century and is ready in Kerala. It follows three generations of a household as they evolve alongside their dynamically evolving environment whereas coping with an odd household curse. Ambitious in scope and peopled by an attention-grabbing solid of characters, this e-book has the potential to be as compelling as Verghese’s immensely profitable earlier novel, Cutting For Stone.