Historical Novels: India

Until recently, most historical novels set in India were written from the perspective of the British, who began trading there in the early seventeenth century and during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gradually added more and more of the country to the British empire. Violent rebellions failed to end British rule. In 1947, the peaceful protest movement led by Mohandas Gandhi finally won independence. Today, with many talented Indian novelists attracting readers around the world, more novels portray the Indian perspective on colonial rule. People are also writing and reading more novels set in earlier centuries when the country was ruled by sultans, emperors and maharajas.

This page also includes novels set in Burma and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

Novels which present primarily or exclusively the perspective of British characters are listed in other pages on this site, depending on the century in which they are set. Novels presenting the perspective of native characters and characters integrated into the native culture are listed below, alphabetically by author, within the following categories:

Ancient, Golden Age and Pre-Colonial India
Colonial and Post-Colonial India
Burma and Ceylon

Ancient, Golden Age and Pre-Colonial India

Stephen Alter, Silk and Steel, set during a period of warfare between Sikhs and Muslims before the time of the Raj

William E. Barrett, Lady of the Lotus, about the life and spiritual quest of the prince who founded Buddhism, told from his wife's perspective

Kunal Basu, The Miniaturist, about a gifted but unconventional artist in the sixteenth century court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar

Paul Carus, Amitabha: A Story of Buddhist Theology, about a Buddhist monk; published in 1906

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Palace of Illusions, literary historical fantasy based on the ancient Indian epic, Mahabharat, from the feminist perspective of Princess Panchaali

Jonathan Fast, Golden Fire, about two princes of the Gupta Dynasty vying for the throne in the fourth century

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, about the prince and spiritual seeker who founded Buddhism

Thomas Hoover, The Moghul, about an eighteenth century English sea captain's mission to India to break the Portuguese monopoly on trade there

Leopold Myers, The Near and the Far, set in the sixteenth century empire of Akbar; published in 1929; #1 in the Root and the Flower series

Leopold Myers, Prince Jali, set in the sixteenth century empire of Akbar; published in 1931; #2 in the Root and the Flower series

Leopold Myers, Rajah Amar (also titled The Root and the Flower), set in the sixteenth century empire of Akbar; published in 1934; #3 in the Root and the Flower series

Leopold Myers, The Pool of Vishnu, set in the sixteenth century empire of Akbar; published in 1940; #4 in the Root and the Flower series

Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence, about a blonde stranger who arrives in the Mughal court of Akbar the Great with a story about a lost Mughal princess in Renaissance Florence

John Shors, Beneath a Marble Sky, a love story set during the building of the Taj Mahal in 1632

John Speed, The Temple Dancer, about a slave woman during the last years of the 17th century Mogul Empire; #1 in the Temple Dancer trilogy

John Speed, Tiger Claws, about the last years of the 17th century Mogul Empire; #2 in the Temple Dancer trilogy

Indu Sundaresan, The Twentieth Wife about the future Empress Nur Jahan in the late sixteenth century

Indu Sundaresan, The Feast of Roses about the Empress Nur Jahan in the early seventeenth century; sequel to The Twentieth Wife

Gary Worthington, India Treasures: A Novel of Rajasthan and Northern India Through the Ages (titled The Mangarh Chronicle in India), a series of novellas set in various periods of Indian history from the time of the Buddha on, linked by a story set in the 1970s involving a search for treasure in a fortress

Gary Worthington, India Fortunes , a series of novellas set in various periods of Indian history from the time when the Taj Mahal was built into the twentieth century, linked by a story set in the 1970s involving a continuing search for treasure in a fortress; sequel to India Treasures

Colonial and Post-Colonial India

Thalassa Ali, A Beggar at the Gates, an Englishwoman in the Punjab struggles to save the lives of those she loves; #2 in the Paradise trilogy

Thalassa Ali, Companions of Paradise, an Englishwoman estranged from her Indian husband risks traveling to the city of Kabul to consult a Sufi mystic; #3 in the Paradise trilogy

Shauna Singh Baldwin, What the Body Remembers, about a village girl who becomes the second wife of a wealthy Sikh twenty-five years her senior during the turbulent years before the Pakistan partition

Kunal Basu, The Opium Clerk , about an Indian man who finds a job at a Calcutta auction house where he becomes involved in a mysterious business which turns out to be the opium trade

Pearl S. Buck, Mandala, about a love affair between an Indian man and an American woman during the early years of independence; published in 1970

David Davidar, The House of Blue Mangoes, about three generations of a family who raise mangoes in a coastal village

J.G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur, about the colonial Britons besieged in the outpost of Krishnapur during the 1857 Indian Mutiny

E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, about the tragic misunderstandings that result after a British woman visits the Malabar Caves

Katharine Gordon, The Emerald Peacock, historical romance about the love between an Indian prince and a young Irish woman during the 1857 Mutiny; #1 in the Peacock series

Katharine Gordon, Peacock in Flight, historical romance; #2 in the Peacock series

Katharine Gordon, In the Shadow of the Peacock, historical romance; #3 in the Peacock series

Katharine Gordon, The Peacock Ring, historical romance; #4 in the Peacock series

Katharine Gordon, Peacock in Jeopardy, historical romance; #5 in the Peacock series

Katharine Gordon, The Peacock Rider, historical romance; #6 in the Peacock series

Katharine Gordon, The Peacock Fan, historical romance; #7 in the Peacock series

Linda Holeman, In a Far Country, about the daughter of British missionaries in India who seeks out the son of her mother's ayah when tragedy strikes, but learns he is not the kind of man she thought he was

Sudhir Kakar, The Seeker (2007), about the friendship between Mahatma Ghandhi and the daughter of a British admiral who becomes his adoring disciple

M.M. Kaye, The Far Pavilions, about an English boy raised in India who falls in love with a half-caste Hindu princess

M. M. Kaye, The Shadow of the Moon, about an Anglo-Spanish woman born in India who returns to marry a British government official just before the Sepoy Rebellion

Anurag Kumar, Recalcitrance, about the experiences of Indians during the 1857 mutiny against British rule, by an author whose ancestors witnessed it.

Hari Kunzru, The Impressionist, about a half-English, half-Indian boy who grows up in luxury near the Taj Mahal until, at fifteen, his true parentage is discovered and he is thrown out to fend for himself

Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace, about a servant boy during the long struggle for independence

Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, set in Colonial India and Imperial China before the outbreak of the Opium Wars; forthcoming in June 2008

John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal, a pro-colonialist novel about a British officer during the Sepoy Rebellion; originally published in 1950

John Masters, The Deceivers, about a British officer who investigates a murderous thuggee cult which worships the goddess Kali; published in 1952

Gita Mehta, Raj, about a princess who finds herself ill-prepared for the changing times as the British gain control of her country's government

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, magical realism about two boys born at exactly midnight on the day the country won its independence

Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown, about the events that follow the rape of a young Englishwoman during the last years of the Colonial period; #1 in the Raj Quartet

Paul Scott, The Day of the Scorpion, about the arrest of the Indian Congress leaders and the unrest during the last years of the Colonial period; #2 in the Raj Quartet

Paul Scott, The Towers of Silence: , about the deteriorating state of British rule during the last years of the Colonial period; #3 in the Raj Quartet

Paul Scott, A Division of the Spoils, about the chaotic British departure; #4 in the Raj Quartet

Paul Scott, Staying On, about a British couple who remain in India after it gains its independence; sequel to the Raj Quartet

Carolyn Slaughter, A Black Englishman, about a love affair between an Englishwoman and an Indian doctor in the 1920s.

Indu Sundaresan, The Splendor of Silence, about an American army officer and an Indian woman who fall in love during World War II

Rabindranath Tagore, Gora, about an Irish child taken in by a Hindu family in Bengal and raised as an orthodox Brahmin during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Nilita Vachani, Homespun (2008), a family saga about a couple who marry as teenagers in the early twentieth century - he committed to Gandhi, she to her wardrobe – and their descendants

Burma and Ceylon

C.S. Godshalk, Kalimantaan, about a Burmese raja and his British wife

Ananda Guruge, Free at Last in Paradise: A Historical Novel of Sri Lanka, about Ceylon from the mid-nineteenth century to 1948 when it became independent Sri Lanka

Rani Manicka, The Rice Mother, a family saga about a Ceylonese woman who marries and moves to Malaya before World War II

Daniel Mason, The Piano Tuner, about a piano tuner dispatched to Burma in 1886 to restore a British official's piano damaged by the steamy climate

Edie Meidav, The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon, about a New Yorker who goes to Ceylon in 1936 as the days of British colonialism near their end

George Orwell, Burmese Days, a satirical novel about British imperialism set in a fictional district of Burma before World War II; based on Orwell's own experiences in Burma, so technically not historical fiction

Shyam Selvadurai, Cinnamon Gardens, about a family in Ceylon during the 1920s

Leonard Woolf, The Village in the Jungle, about life in Colonial Ceylon

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