Srinivas, an elderly Brahmin, has been living in a south London suburb for thirty years. After the death of his son, and later of his wife, this lonely man is befriended by an englishwoman in her sixties, whom he takes into his home. The two form a deep and abiding relationship. But the haven they have created for themselves proves to be a fragile one. Racist violence enters their world and Srinivas’s life changes irrevocably―as does his dream of England as a country of tolerance and equality. Kamala Markandaya was one of India’s most politically acute and prescient novelists. In this troubling and compassionate story, originally published in 1973, she foreshadows many of the issues of diaspora and race that we face in today’s world.

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