Heat and Dust

Heat and Dust (1975) is a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala which won the Booker Prize in 1975. It is said to be based on an idea by another writer, but this writer is un-named. The events of the story take place in India, during the periods of the British Raj in the 1920s and the present day of the novel (the 1970s). A young English woman searches for the truth about her great aunt Olivia (1920s). The narrator discovers that Olivia was a woman smothered by the social restrictions placed upon her by British society. She falls in love with a Nawab and becomes pregnant with his child. Her decision to abort the baby results in a scandal. In discovering the truth about these events, the narrator also comes to fall in love with an Indian man,...