Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The English Problem

The English Problem

Kamlani, Beena

Hardcover

General FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $29.00

ISBN10: 0593798465
ISBN13: 9780593798461
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Published: Jan 28 2025
Pages: 480
Weight: 1.43
Height: 1.40 Width: 6.38 Depth: 9.46
Language: English
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.

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