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Heat and Dust

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Heat and Dust

By: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Narrated by: Julie Christie
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About this listen

In 1923 the beautiful, spoiled, and bored Olivia, married to Douglas and his career in the Indian Civil Service, outrages the English and Indian communities by eloping with an Indian prince. Fifty years later, Douglas’s granddaughter, armed with Olivia’s letters, goes back to the heat and dust and squalor of the bazaars to find out for herself how Olivia could have been so affected by India that she turned her back on her own country.

©1975 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction

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Salman Rushdie wrote (of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet) "Indians get walk ons, but remain, for the most part bit players in their own history." And you can trace this process through the winners of the Booker prize: The Siege of Krishapur 1973; Heat and Dust 1975; Staying on 1977; Midnight's Children 1981; The White Tiger 2008. Gradually the perspective shifts from white British to Asian. Heat and Dust is interesting because it's the story of 2 English women, Olivia in 1920s British Raj and the other, the unnamed narrator, in post colonial India. Both women take Indian lovers. Although the story is recounted from a white British perspective the difference between social and racial attitudes the 30 year time gap is striking.

An interesting read but I think its inclusion in the Daily Telegraph's list of the "10 all-time greatest Asian novels" is well wide of the mark.

One star deducted from Julie Christie's otherwise excellent performance because of the appalling attempt at a Brummie accent.

Changting Attitudes to India and to Indians..

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I always enjoy books set in India & found the two periods ie 1920s & present day, worked well & convincingly. Good characterisations too which made it a very good ‘read’

All the Sights & Smells of India re-created

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