Historical fiction books from India
Recommended historical fiction books (32)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into historical fiction here are some historical fiction books from India for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry EN
Description:
"A novel set in India during the Emergency, by the author of Such a Long Journey."
2.
Description:
An NYRB Classics Original Basti is a beautifully written reckoning with the tragic history of Pakistan. Basti means settlement, a common place, and Intizar Husain’s extraordinary novel begins with a mythic, even mystic, vision of harmony between old and young, man and woman, Muslim and Hindu. Then Zakir, the hero, wakes to the modern world. Crowds gather. Slogans echo. Cities burn. Whether hunkered down with family or furtively meeting to exchange news with friends in cafés, Zakir is alone in a country lost to the politics of loneliness.
3.
Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai EN
Description:
A German Jew flees Germany to live in India. After a relatively successful business career, her retires to a rather impoverished life in the company of a pack of stray cats.
4.
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami EN
Description:
LONGLIST 2008 - IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Anita Rau Badami's acclaimed novel Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? chronicles the stories of three women, linked in love and tragedy, over a span of fifty years, sweeping from the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 to the explosion of Air India flight 182 off the coast of Ireland in 1985. Alive with Badami's warmth and humanity, and brimming with the daily sights and sounds of both Canada and India, this novel brilliantly conveys the tumultuous effects of the past on new immigrants, and the ways in which memory and myth, the personal and the po... continue
5.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling EN
Description:
The only one of Kipling's novels to be cast in an American setting, Captains Courageous endures as one of literature's most cherished and memorable sea adventures. Harvey Cheyne, spoiled millionaire's son, tumbles overboard from a luxury liner--only to be rescued by the crew of a Gloucester schooner. Thus begins the boy's second voyage into the rugged rites and ways of sailors. Like all Kipling's masterworks, Captains Courageous is an interweaving of art and moral purpose. Angus Wilson has said that it shows "delicacy of craft and violence of feeling, exactitude and wile impressionism, subtlet... continue
6.
Das Gleichgewicht der Welt by Rohinton Mistry DE
Description:
Man schreibt das Jahr 1975. Der Ort: Bombay. Hier treffen vier Menschen aufeinander, deren Schicksale im Mittelpunkt des Romans stehen. Dina Dalal, eine Frau Anfang Vierzig und seit fast zwanzig Jahren verwitwet; Maneck Kohlah, ein junger Student aus dem Gebiet des Himalajas; Ishvar Darji, ein unglaublicher Optimist und sein widerspenstiger junger Neffe Omprakash - zwei Schneider, die vor den unerträglichen Verhältnissen auf dem Land in die Stadt geflohen sind. Diese vier lernen sich kennen, achten und lieben und werden doch vom Schicksal wieder auseinandergerissen.
7.
Description:
"It was time for that tiny little dream that lay hidden all these years to gradually acquire a form and shape. The thought of making it come true was an audacious one. She dared not do it. On the other hand she dared a lot after all, she was Fateema Lokhandwala, a courageous young woman... " "As pots and words banged against each other, her two-wheeler would whizz past everything, leaving it all behind. Main road, Mashallah! Current-like, the city would course through her body... At such times, Fateema lived in the present, and in the future. " Thus begins Ila Arab Mehta s beautiful and skillf... continue
8.
Flying in Colors by Padma Prasad Reddeppa EN
Description:
Aunties tell nine-year-old Pavi that she's asking too many "big women" questions, but she's tired of grow-up secrets. How are babies born? And why do people die? A beautiful debut about family, tradition, and the healing that comes from finding the answers. It's 1975, Tamil Nadu, South India, and nine-year-old Pavi is living a carefree life with her large intergenerational family. Everyday is an adventure. Why not steal 233 mangoes from the neighbor's tree? Or make up grand stories that take her to Jupiter? If only there wasn't a sadness lingering over the family. You see, her uncle Selva died... continue
9.
Gun Island : A spellbinding, globe-trotting novel by the bestselling author of the Ibis trilogy by Amitav Ghosh EN
Description:
Bundook. Gun. A common word, but one which turns Deen Datta's world upside down. A dealer of rare books, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes to the realities of growing up in today's world; Rafi, with his desperate at... continue
10.
Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi EN
Description:
This is the first book in a trilogy on Shiva, the simple man whose karma re-cast his as our Mahadev, the God of Gods.