The Solitude of Emperors by David Davidar

'We do not know what to do with one of our most precious resources,
solitude, and so we fill it with noise and chatter..."

Suffocating in the small-town world of his parents, Vijay is desperate to
 escape to the raw energy of Bombay in the early 1990s. His big chance
 arrives unexpectedly when the family servant, Raju, is recruited by a Hindu
 fundamentalist organisation. As a result of an article he writes about the
 increasing power of the sectarian politicians, Vijay gets a job in a small
Bombay publication, The Indian Secularist. There he meets Rustom Sorabjee -
 the inspirational founder of the journal - who opens Vijay's eyes to the damage caused to the nation by the mixing of religion and politics.

A year after his arrival in Bombay, Vijay is caught up in violent riots that rip through the city, a reflection of the upsurge of fundamentalism everywhere in
 the country. He is sent to a small tea town in the Nilgiri mountains to recover,
 but finds that the unrest in other parts of India has touched this peaceful spot
 as well, specifically a spectacular shrine called The Tower of God, which
 becomes the object of political wrangling. He is befriended by Noah, an
 enigmatic and colourful character who lives in the local cemetery and quotes
 Pessoa, Cavafy, and Rimbaud, but is ostracised by a local elite obsessed with
 little more than growing their prize fuchsias. As the discord surrounding the
local shrine comes to a head, Vijay tries to alert them to the dangers,
but his intervention will have consequences he could never have foreseen.

The Solitude of Emperors is a stunningly perceptive novel about modern
 Indian, about what motivates fundamentalist beliefs, and what makes
someone driven, bold or mad enough to make a stand.

Genres: Literary Fiction - India - Politics - Historical Fiction - Religion
Condition: Very good
Published: 2007 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Pages: 246
ISBN: 9780297852858
Weight: 380g