The East Indian by Brinda Charry

The East Indian by Brinda Charry

An exhilarating debut novel about the first native of the Indian subcontinent to arrive in Colonial America, inspired by a historical figure--"marvelous...readers of Esi Edugyan and Yaa Gyasi will be enthralled" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Meet Tony: insatiably curious, deeply compassionate, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after traveling from the British East India Company's outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he and his fellow indentured servants--boys like himself, men from Africa, a mad woman from London--must work the tobacco plantations. Orphaned and afraid, Tony initially longs for home. But as he adjusts to his new environment, finding companionship and even love, he can envision a life for himself after servitude. His dream: to become a medicine man, or a physician's assistant, an expert on roots and herbs, a dispenser of healing compounds.

Like the play that captivates him--Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream--Tony's life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humor and tragedy. Set during the early days of English colonization in Jamestown, before servitude calcified into racialized slavery, The East Indian gives authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historic figure and brings the world he would have encountered to vivid life. In this coming-of-age tale, narrated by a most memorable literary rascal, Charry conjures a young character sure to be beloved by readers for years to come.

Brinda Charry teaches English as an Associate Professor at Keene State College in New Hampshire. She was born and raised in India and earned her doctorate at Syracuse University in New York before coming to Keene to teach early modern British literature and culture in 2005. Shakespeare, intercultural contacts in the 16th and 17th centuries, and constructions of race and religious difference in the period are among her study and scholarly interests. Charry is also a fiction writer, with two novels, The Hottest Day of the Year and Naked in the Wind, as well as a collection of short tales, First Love.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781668004531
ISBN 10	1668004534
Title	The East Indian
Author	Brinda Charry
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Year published	2024-04-09
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.