Anand, Mulk Raj

(Indian, 1905–2004)

Anand had a very long writing career in Britain and India. He was a generously sympathetic writer of novels and short stories about Indian life. His early works explore the lives of some of the poorest people in Indian society before independence. Start with Untouchable (1935) or The Coolie (1936), moving novels about the struggles of poor workers. Across the Black Waters (1940) tells of the experience of Indian soldiers in the First World War; about a million Indians served Britain as soldiers or workers in that war, including Anand's father, and Anand was one of the few to write about them in English.

Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie.

See INDIA  TT