The English Problem

In this stunning debut novel, a young Indian man comes to England determined to learn British law so he can use it to help the independence movement back home—but the insidiousness of colonialism as well as a sexual awakening get in his way.

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 bill of rights, and then return home and help drive the British out of India using their own laws against them. Before he leaves, his family insists he fulfill his arranged marriage and is hastily betrothed to a young woman he hardly knows.

He arrives in London in 1931. He is not dressed for the British rain, and, shivering, rings the doorbell of the people who have agreed to host him in this strange land. He finds that his benefactors are having a party and warmly welcome him. He is the only brown person in the room and made acutely aware of his differences. By the end of the evening, he vows he will never become an Englishman. Later, at a different social gathering, he tries to approach a beautiful white woman but is intercepted—disqualified and barred again because of the color of his skin. But as he is leaving he meets a captivating young man who seems keen to show him the rules of polite British society, if only to later break them. That night, unexpectedly, he meets the two people who will show him how to fight back and win.

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, 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.

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.

Story Locale: London