The Impressionist
by Hari Kunzru
The Impressionist
by Hari Kunzru
Paperback
Currently not available.
Contact us for further queries.Paperback
Currently not available.
Contact us for further queries.About the Book
This novel is a comic saga about history, identity and home. It is the epochal debut of an exceptional writer.
At the turn of the century in a remote corner of India, an English civil servant and a reluctant Hindu bride cross paths during a cataclysmic rainstorm. Nine months later a boy is born. The astrologer's chart does not bode well.
Pran Nath's startling whiteness is regarded as a sign of nobility, but when his true parentage is revealed , he is ejected from his father's house and begins a haphazard journey through the bizarre dark side of the British Empire. Sold to a pair of eunuchs, he is taken to a backwater state in the Punjab and becomes the bait in the dynastic intrigues of a dissolute Indian court. Escaping to Bombay, he reinvents himself as Pretty Bobby, prince of the red-light district, while around him the Raj slides into decadence and the slums seethe with political discontent. Then a chance encounter with a drunken Englishman leads to the most daring reinvention of all. Pran Nath becomes Jonathan Bridgeman, the perfect Englishman.
As he travels across the world, from Bombay to London, from a mouldering Norfolk public school to Oxford and Paris, everyone sees him with a different eye. He blends in perfectly, until he finds himself part of an ill-fated anthropological expedition in West Africa, picking up the white man's burden for real.
The Impressionist is a comic saga about history, identity and home. It is the epochal debut of an exceptional writer.
At the turn of the century in a remote corner of India, an English civil servant and a reluctant Hindu bride cross paths during a cataclysmic rainstorm. Nine months later a boy is born. The astrologer's chart does not bode well.
Pran Nath's startling whiteness is regarded as a sign of nobility, but when his true parentage is revealed , he is ejected from his father's house and begins a haphazard journey through the bizarre dark side of the British Empire. Sold to a pair of eunuchs, he is taken to a backwater state in the Punjab and becomes the bait in the dynastic intrigues of a dissolute Indian court. Escaping to Bombay, he reinvents himself as Pretty Bobby, prince of the red-light district, while around him the Raj slides into decadence and the slums seethe with political discontent. Then a chance encounter with a drunken Englishman leads to the most daring reinvention of all. Pran Nath becomes Jonathan Bridgeman, the perfect Englishman.
As he travels across the world, from Bombay to London, from a mouldering Norfolk public school to Oxford and Paris, everyone sees him with a different eye. He blends in perfectly, until he finds himself part of an ill-fated anthropological expedition in West Africa, picking up the white man's burden for real.
The Impressionist is a comic saga about history, identity and home. It is the epochal debut of an exceptional writer.
All Editions
Paperback, 6th Edition
ISBN13: 9780143029762
Penguin Books India, 2006
Paperback, 6th Edition
ISBN13: 9780241141755
Hamish Hamilton, 2002
Share Your Thoughts
Your review helps others make informed decisions
Click on a star to start your review