Книга The East Indian
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.
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‘Spins a drama of hardship, dislocation, and love … This sweeping coming-of-age tale is more than a little Dickensian.’
" - The Guardian"
‘A fascinating novel.’
" - 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.’
" - 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.’
" - NPR"
‘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.’
" - The Australian"
‘The East Indian is a vivid, meticulously detailed novel that benefits from the erudition of a specialist historian.’
" - The Sydney Morning Herald