The English Problem - by Beena Kamlani (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Shiv Advani is an eighteen-year-old growing up in India. But he is no ordinary young man. Shiv has been personally chosen by Mahatma Gandhi to come to England, learn their laws, and then return home and help drive the British out of India. ... He arrives in London and soon discovers a world he is both repelled by and drawn to. Shiv knows his duty: get in, learn the letter of the law, get out. But as anyone who has ever lived in a British colony can tell you, 'the English Problem' is multifaceted. The racist colonialism of 'the empire on which the sun never sets' seeps into everything--not just landed territories, but territories of the mind: literature, language, religion, sexuality, self-identity. Soon the people Shiv sought to be liberated from will be the people he desperately wants to be a part of"--

Book Synopsis

A young Indian man is tapped to help his country's fight for freedom--but his heart engages him in a different war.

"Grand, sweeping, mesmerizing . . . a richly detailed, politically profound story of love, of migration, of individuals caught up in the great convulsions of history."--Joseph O'Neill, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of Godwin

Shiv Advani is an eighteen-year-old growing up in India. But he is no ordinary young man. Shiv has been personally chosen by Mahatma Gandhi to come to England, learn their laws, and then return home and help drive the British out of India. Before he leaves, his family insists he fulfill his arranged marriage, and he is hastily betrothed to a young woman he hardly knows.

He arrives in London and soon discovers a world he is both repelled by and drawn to. Shiv knows his duty: get in, learn the letter of the law, get out. But as anyone who has ever lived in a British colony can tell you, "the English Problem" is multifaceted. The racist colonialism of "the empire on which the sun never sets" seeps into everything--not just landed territories, but territories of the mind: literature, language, religion, sexuality, self-identity. Soon the people Shiv sought to be liberated from will be the people he desperately wants to be a part of. In the end, Shiv must fight not only for his country's liberation but also his own.

Set against the backdrop of the Indian independence movement, with appearances by historical figures such as Virginia and Leonard Woolf and Mahatma Gandhi, The English Problem is so self-assured and ambitious, it is hard to believe it is a debut.

Review Quotes

"This breathtakingly impressive intellectual novel with its elegant and sympathetic prose explores a broad sweep of subjects including manners, culture, tradition, history, literature. But, above all, it is about the ambiguities surrounding race, politics, family, sexual identity, and the complex enigma of belonging."--Historical Novels Review

"Kamlani's story of one man's odyssey of discovery contains extensive historical context. Replete with lyrical imagery of rivers, the saga confronts issues of racism, class disparities, parenthood, and sexual acceptance. . . . Kamlani's ambitious debut packs an important dose of relevant history into a very human story."--Kirkus Reviews

"From these opening lines, Beena Kamlani introduces the primary conflict of her debut novel, The English Problem the tension between the home we are from and the home we have chosen. . . . Kamlani's writing vividly brings us into Shiv's experience through his senses. . . . The English Problem is a true bildungsroman, as Shiv feels out the lines between desire and obligation, and learns what it means to be at home. Readers will certainly enjoy its language and the subtle complexity of its themes."--BookPage

"A dynamic character portrait as well as a nuanced depiction of India's struggles against British rule. It's a triumph."--Publishers Weekly

"An absorbing story that will please both fiction lovers and history buffs. . . . [A] sweeping historical fiction set against the backdrop of pre-independence India and England, two countries and people in the throes of cataclysmic change. . . . Pre-war London comes alive in The English Problem, and Kamlani is a master of detail."--Khabar

"[A]n assured work of historical fiction . . . Shiv, an engaging, torn, and complicated figure, centers Kamlani's gripping and revealing account of London's creative circle, the crimes of colonialism, and the slow march to India's independence."--Booklist

"What a grand, sweeping, mesmerizing book this is: a richly detailed, politically profound story of love, of migration, of individuals caught up in the great convulsions of history. Wow."--Joseph O'Neill, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of Netherland

"The English Problem is powerful and profound--a journey across the world, rich in geography, history, philosophy, psychology! Beena Kamlani's voice is lyrical and poetic; her style embracing, haunting, inspiring. The novel is a beautifully realized story about colonialism and about love across racial, gender, and economic barriers in a toxic time. It is a glorious achievement."--Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Vols. 1-3

"In elegant, evocative prose, Beena Kamlani evokes both the British understanding of India and the Indian understanding of Britain--each culture admiring yet misapprehending the other--and the life of a man who was of both cultures and of neither. It contains darkness, loneliness, even tragedy; but also an almost Gandhian narrative of peaceable, unrelenting hope."--Andrew Solomon, National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon

About the Author

Beena Kamlani is a Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer whose work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review; Ploughshares; Identity Lessons: Learning to Be American, eds. Gillan (1999); Growing Up Ethnic in America, eds. Gillan (2000); The Lifted Brow (2008); World Literature Today; and other publications. She has been awarded fellowships at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ledig House/Writers Omi, Hawthornden Castle, Jentel Arts, and Hedgebrook. A former senior editor for the Penguin Group, she taught book editing at New York University for nearly two decades and was presented an award for teaching excellence. The English Problem is her first novel.