Booker Prize Winner 1973

Introduced by Hilary Mantel

‘Sparkling and serious, eloquent and engaging, this story of beleagured Britons during the Indian Mutiny is a tour de force of comic invention, as well as one of the most convincing historical novels ever written.’

Winner of the 1973 Booker Prize, The Siege of Krishnapur is a masterly tale of the British in India at the time of the so–called ‘Mutiny’. At times exposing the brutality of empire, at times delighting in the absurdity of the colonial belief in its moral superiority, this is both a brilliant exposition of a crucial period of Anglo–Indian history and a comic masterpiece.

India, 1857. The British community in Krishnapur continues on its usual round of balls, picnics and dinners, blissfully complacent in the face of growing rumbles of discontent. George Fleury, making a pilgrimage with his widowed sister Miriam to their mother’s grave, enters into the full social whirl with the beautiful but disdainful Louise Dunstaple, boorish opium agent Mr Rayne, and swaggering Lieutenant Cutter. Only Mr Hopkins, the ‘Collector’, senses danger in the mysterious stacks of chapattis that are left in strange places, but his warnings are ignored, his caution mocked – until it is far too late. When the Sepoys in the local cantonment rise in bloody revolt, the shocked and disbelieving British find themselves crowded into the residency, fighting for their lives with every weapon possible – even, in Fleury’s case, a violin.

Farrell opens a window onto such diverse subjects as the Victorian belief in progress, the passionate theological controversies of the time and the squabbles between doctors attempting to unravel the mystery of cholera. His satirical wit impales his characters with the deftest of touches, and yet it is hard not to retain some admiration for their lost certainties and bravery. As Hilary Mantel writes in her introduction, it is ’one of a handful of great historical novels which, while truly cogent about and grounded in the time and place... are totally satisfying as works of fiction’.

Chosen by Beryl Bainbridge – 2008 Castaway’s Choice

Five–time Booker Prize nominee, Beryl Bainbridge’s best known works include Sweet William (1975), An Awfully Big Adventure (1989) and Master Georgie (1998), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.

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