The East Indian
A Novel
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4.2 • 13 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An exhilarating debut novel about the first native of the Indian subcontinent to arrive in Colonial America, inspired by a historical figure—“marvelous…readers of Esi Edugyan and Yaa Gyasi will be enthralled” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Meet Tony: insatiably curious, deeply compassionate, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after traveling from the British East India Company’s outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he and his fellow indentured servants—boys like himself, men from Africa, a mad woman from London—must work the tobacco plantations. Orphaned and afraid, Tony initially longs for home. But as he adjusts to his new environment, finding companionship and even love, he can envision a life for himself after servitude. His dream: to become a medicine man, or a physician’s assistant, an expert on roots and herbs, a dispenser of healing compounds.
Like the play that captivates him—Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—Tony’s life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humor and tragedy. Set during the early days of English colonization in Jamestown, before servitude calcified into racialized slavery, The East Indian gives authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historic figure and brings the world he would have encountered to vivid life. In this coming-of-age tale, narrated by a most memorable literary rascal, Charry conjures a young character sure to be beloved by readers for years to come.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shakespeare scholar Charry marks her U.S. fiction debut with a marvelous picaresque of a boy's journey from 17th-century India to colonial Virginia. Tony, the narrator, lives on India's east coast with his courtesan mother and her patron, Francis Day. After Tony's mother dies when he is 11, Day arranges for him to travel to England as a servant. After his new employer dies on the voyage, Tony finds work in London as a dockworker and shelter in a boardinghouse run by a compassionate Bengali man. Watching a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tony is fascinated by the "Indian boy" over whom Oberon and Titania compete, wondering if the nameless character is valued "as a child, as a servant, or simply as a rare thing?" Tony lives in England for eight months before being abducted and illegally shipped to the colonies to supply Virginia tobacco growers with labor. He reaches Jamestown in 1635, where he's indentured for seven years to a wealthy landowner, then transferred to an even crueler master, but he manages to survive due to his bonds with fellow workers, both Black and white. Richly imagined characters and keen explorations of identity, place, and the power of imagination drive this luminous achievement. Readers of Esi Edugyan and Yaa Gyasi will be enthralled.
