On the 9th of April, at 6.30pm, author Shrabani Basu will be talking to Vivek Shanbhag about her new book, The Mystery Of The Parsee Lawyer. Get your copy of the book, and join us for the event on Facebook Live.
In the village of Great Wyrley near Birmingham, someone is mutilating horses. Someone is also sending threatening letters to the vicarage, where the vicar, Shahpur Edalji, is a Parsi convert to Christianity and the first Indian to have a parish in England. His son George – quiet, socially awkward and the only boy at school with distinctly Indian features – grows up into a successful barrister, till he is improbably linked to and then prosecuted for the above crimes in a case that left many convinced that justice hadn't been served.
When he is released early, his conviction still hangs over him. Having lost faith in the police and the legal system, George Edalji turns to the one man he believes can clear his name – the one whose novels he spent his time reading in prison, the creator of the world's greatest detective. When he writes to Arthur Conan Doyle asking him to meet, Conan Doyle agrees.
From the author of Victoria and Abdul comes an eye-opening look at race and an unexpected friendship in the early days of the twentieth century, and the perils of being foreign in a country built on empire.
About the Speakers
Shrabani Basu is a journalist and Sunday Times best-selling author. Her books include the critically acclaimed Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer: Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji and the Case of the Foreigner in the English Village, For King and Another Country: Indian Soldiers on the Western Front 1914-18, Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant (now a major motion picture,) Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan and Curry: The Story of the Nation’s Favourite Dish. She has always combined her journalism with her love of history and all her books have evolved from her observations about the shared histories of India and Britain.
Vivek Shanbhag is the author of eight works of fiction and two plays, all of which have been published to wide acclaim in the South Indian language Kannada. He was a Fall 2016 resident at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Ghachar Ghochar is the first of his books to appear in English. Get your copy of the book from Champaca.