Description

A NEW YORK TIMES 2023 SUMMER READ

Meet Tony: the first Indian to set foot on American soil.

Among the settlers, slaves, and indentured servants that travel across the Atlantic to the New World in the early 1600s, there is also Tony. As a child, his home in India becomes a trading outpost for the English; as an orphaned teenager, he is kidnapped in London and bound to servitude on a Virginia plantation. But Tony is not giving up on his dreams just yet. Under the rule of a sadistic plantation owner, he forms a tender bond with a young boy who will haunt his nightmares; on an exploration inland alongside a trader and Native Americans, he realises the world is vaster and more mysterious than he could have imagined; and in Jamestown, he finally earns himself a position as a physician’s apprentice, an ambition he has long harboured. The East Indian is a compelling story of family, friendship, and finding oneself in the seeds of a new world.

Publisher Review

‘Spins a drama of hardship, dislocation, and love … This sweeping coming-of-age tale is more than a little Dickensian.’ — James Smart * The Guardian * ‘A fascinating novel.’ — Alida Becker * The New York Times * ‘A sweeping coming-of-age story which heads from the jasmine-scented air of the Coromandel Coast in 1635 via the teeming streets of London to arrive in the gruelling tobacco plantations of Jamestown, Virginia, in the charismatic company of orphaned Tony.’ — Eithne Farry * The Daily Mail * ‘Marvellous … Richly imagined characters and keen explorations of identity, place, and the power of imagination drive this luminous achievement.’ * Publisher’s Weekly, starred review * ‘Charry’s most remarkable feat with this novel is that she wears her enormous learning and research lightly throughout. Her cinematic worldbuilding ensures spectacle and substance as it sweeps us along the Coromandel coast, London streets, and the Virginian countryside. The characters are detailed with care and attention so that we find humanity even in the worst of them. Tony’s voice, in first-person point of view, is earnest and endearing, especially when he is filled with wonder about human biology, the beauty and curative qualities of various plants and flowers, and the powerful mystery of falling in love … Just over the last four decades, there has been a slew of books about South Asian or East Indian immigrants – both fiction and nonfiction. Several have won awards. Almost all of them have centred on contemporary stories. Charry’s “Tony East Indian” plants his own flag in this literary landscape.

Through this fictional first East Indian immigrant story, Brinda Charry has also beautifully pioneered a much-needed path forward into rich, new literary territory.’ — Jenny Bhatt * NPR * ‘Tony, the “East Indian” of the title of Brinda Charry’s utterly enjoyable debut novel, reads like a character straight out of Dickens. Based on an actual historical figure, the first person from India documented in the records of Colonial Virginia, Tony ventures into the entangled richness of a nascent America – a place he calls, “this precarious edge of the world.” It is peopled by “servants” – both white and black, female and male – who find themselves as bound to the New World as they are to the Englishmen who rule it. Picaresque in style, lyrical of voice, gripping, and authentic, The East Indian is a real treat.’ — David Wright Falade, author of Black Cloud Rising ‘History comes alive in this brilliant, highly-imaginative, and vivid novel. Immersive and revelatory – a stellar achievement.’ — E. C. Osondu, winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, author of This House is Not for Sale ‘Filled with memorable characters, The East Indian grapples with the brutal colonialism and indentured labour of the 1600s with warmth and wit. An entertaining novel that adds more heft to Brinda Charry’s already impressive oeuvre.’ — Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire and Why I Am a Hindu ‘What a vast and wondrous ocean of a novel this is – throwing up the unexpected and startling, the horrifying and utterly beautiful, moving from shore to shore with spectacularly skilful narrative poise. To journey with The East Indian is to journey through a world shape-shifting into the modern, a world being ravaged and transformed. It is to be reminded that amidst the rough sweep and scour of history, what remains precious are these timeless, enduring things – friendship, kindness, healing.’ — Janice Pariat, author of The Nine-Chambered Heart and Everything the Light Touches ‘A debut novel about the first native of the Indian subcontinent to live in the American colonies, Charry’s stirring coming-of-age tale centres on Tony, whose kidnapping resulted in a voyage to England and later to the new colony of Virginia.’ * The Washington Post * ‘[D]azzling … Brinda Charry, a specialist in English Renaissance literature, brings all her tremendous knowledge of colonial history to these pages. Her writing is poised, polished and beautifully crafted. Most outstanding, however, is the joy and wonder she breathes into her eminently loveable characters. Charry provides insight into issues of class, wealth, welfare, and racism through the eyes of our bright-eyed, innocent and compelling protagonist.’ — Cheryl Akle * The Australian * ‘The East Indian is a vivid, meticulously detailed novel that benefits from the erudition of a specialist historian.’ — Cameron Woodhead * The Sydney Morning Herald * ‘Epic … special mention must be made of the beauty of the translation … The attention to historical detail is impressive and the characterisation is superb. This is an extraordinary novel.’ — Bob Moore, Good Reading Magazine, starred review ‘A wonderful look at the formative years of the new world through the eyes of Tony, the son of a Tamil courtesan, as we follow his journey into adulthood. Set in the 1600s, a young Tony leaves what would become Madras for London after the death of his mother. There he is press-ganged into becoming an indentured servant in Virginia, then a new colony of the British in America. It’s through Tony’s compassion, curiosity, bonds of friendship, and yearning to become a physician that this story unfolds – a historical sweep across the perhaps familiar literary terrain of early America, but imagined anew through the experiences of an Indian boy. We are all familiar with the NRI dream and modern aspirations of immigrants, but few of us know just how deeply entwined some Indian lives were with the building of America. Brinda Charry does a remarkable job of painting this world with finely observed brush strokes and individual stories to build an evocative global picture.’ — JCB Prize Praise for Brinda Charry:

‘Brinda Charry is the real thing, a master at the top of her game. Her work engages the human condition and the personal with an intensity and authority that can only be explained by literary grace.’ — Arthur R. Flowers