‘The East Indian' by Brinda Charry wins Society of American Historians Prize for Historical Fiction
The Society of American Historians Prize for Historical Fiction is awarded biennially in odd-numbered years for a book of historical fiction on an American subject. This year, the prize was awarded to Indian-origin writer Brinda Charry for her novel The East Indian. It was published by Scribner in the US and HarperCollins in the Indian subcontinent in 2023. She will receive a cash prize of $2000.
In The East Indian, a young boy named Tony is compassionate and insatiably curious, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after travelling from the coast of India to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself indentured on a Virginia tobacco plantation. Alone and afraid, Tony longs for home and envisions a life after servitude full of adventure and learning. His dream: to become a physician's assistant, an expert on roots and herbs, a dispenser of healing compounds.
Tony's life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humour and tragedy. Set largely during the early days of English colonisation in Virginia, Brinda Charry's The East Indian gives an authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historical figure and brings his world to vivid life.
A review on Scroll said: '[…]At its core, The East Indian is as much a bildungsroman as it is an attempt to trace the finer points of who built the foundations of the economic behemoth that America went on to become. Chronicling the coming-of-age story of an immigrant, and the first few lives of a society, it is a book meant for audiences that like a story made up of big strokes with many different shades.'
In India, the novel was longlisted for the 2023 JCB Prize for Literature. The jury had said about the novel, '[…] We are all familiar with the NRI dream and modern aspirations of immigrants, but few of us know just how deeply entwined some Indian lives were with the building of America. Brinda Charry does a remarkable job of painting this world with finely observed brush strokes and individual stories to build an evocative global picture.'
Born and raised in India, Brinda Charry came to the United States in 1999 to pursue a doctorate in English literature at Syracuse University. She currently teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire.
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