{"product_id":"the-siege-of-krishnapur-isbn-9781590170922","title":"The Siege of Krishnapur","description":"\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Booker Prize. An insightful and thrilling novel about the British Empire in India during the Great Mutiny of 1857, as seen through the eyes of a young, love-struck idealist. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIndia, 1857—the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell’s \u003ci\u003eThe Siege of Krishnapur\u003c\/i\u003e, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFarrell’s story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion—at once brutal, blundering, and wistful—is soon revealed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Siege of Krishnapur\u003c\/i\u003e is a companion to \u003ci\u003eTroubles\u003c\/i\u003e, about the Easter 1916 rebellion in Ireland, and \u003ci\u003eThe Singapore Grip\u003c\/i\u003e, which takes place just before World War II, as the sun begins to set upon the British Empire. Together these three novels offer an unequaled picture of the follies of empire.\"Suspense and subtlety, humour and horror, the near-neighbourliness of heroism and insanity: it is rare to find such divergent elements being controlled in one hand and being raced, as it were, in one yoke. But Farrell manages just this here: his imaginative insight and technical virtuosity combine to produce a novel of quite outstanding quality.\"\u003cbr\u003e— \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The magnificient passages of action in \u003ci\u003eThe Siege of Krishnapur\u003c\/i\u003e, its gallery of characters, its unashamedly detailed and fascinating dissertations on cholera, gunnery, phrenology, the prodigal inventiveness of its no doubt also well-documented scenes should satisfy the most exacting and voracious reader. For a novel to be witty is one thing, to tell a good story is another, to be serious is yet another, but to be all three is surely enough to make it a masterpiece.\"\u003cbr\u003e— John Spurling, \u003ci\u003eThe New Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"…a masterpiece as unclassifiable as Giuseppe Lampedusa’s novel \u003ci\u003eThe Leopard\u003c\/i\u003e or Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Blue Flower\u003c\/i\u003e. A historical novel, a comedy of manners, an intellectual history, an evocation of scene: It is all of these. But it is the inimitable combination of these ingredients that gives the book its perculiar savor.\"\u003cbr\u003e— C\u003ci\u003eolumbus Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJ.G.Farrell\u003c\/b\u003e (1935–1979) was born with a caul, long considered a sign of good fortune.  Academically and athletically gifted, Farrell grew up in England and Ireland. In  1956, during his first term at Oxford, he suffered what seemed a minor injury on  the rugby pitch. Within days, however, he was diagnosed with polio, which nearly  killed him and left him permanently weakened. Farrell’s early novels, which include  \u003ci\u003eThe Lung and A Girl in the Head\u003c\/i\u003e, have been overshadowed by his Empire Trilogy—\u003ci\u003eTroubles\u003c\/i\u003e,  the Booker Prize–winning \u003ci\u003eSiege of Krishnapur\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Singapore Grip \u003c\/i\u003e(all three are  published by NYRB Classics). In early 1979, Farrell bought a farmhouse in Bantry  Bay on the Irish coast. “I’ve been trying to write,” he admitted, “but there are  so many competing interests–the prime one at the moment is fishing off the rocks…  . Then a colony of bees has come to live above my back door and I’m thinking of turning  them into my feudal retainers.” On August 11, Farrell was hit by a wave while fishing  and was washed out to sea. His body was found a month later. A biography of J.G.  Farrell,\u003ci\u003e J.G. Farrell: The Making of a Writer\u003c\/i\u003e by Lavinia Greacen, was published by  Bloomsbury in 1999.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePankaj Mishra\u003c\/b\u003e was born in North India in 1969 and now lives  in London and India. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Romantics\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Los Angeles  Times‘s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and\u003ci\u003e An End to Suffering: The Buddha  in the Worl\u003c\/i\u003ed. He is a frequent contributor to \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe  Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e. His most recent book is \u003ci\u003eAge of Anger: A History of the Present. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304468828389,"sku":"NP9781590170922","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590170922.jpg?v=1767741510","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-siege-of-krishnapur-isbn-9781590170922","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}