Untouchable

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Summary

Mulk Raj Anand's extraordinarily powerful story of an Untouchable in India's caste system, with a new introduction by Ramachandra Guha, author of Gandhi

Bakha is a proud and attractive young man, yet none the less he is an Untouchable - an outcast in India's caste system. It is a system that is even now only slowly changing and was then as cruel and debilitating as that of apartheid. Into this vivid re-creation of one day in the life of Bakha, sweeper and toilet-cleaner, Anand pours a vitality, fire and richness of detail that earn his place as one of the twentieth century's most important Indian writers.

'One of the most eloquent and imaginative works to deal with this difficult and emotive subject' Martin Seymour-Smith

'It recalled to me very vividly the occasions I have walked 'the wrong way' in an Indian city, and it is a way down which no novelist has yet taken me' E. M. Forster

Reviews

One of the most eloquent and imaginative works to deal with this difficult and emotive subject
Martin Seymour-Smith

About the author

Mulk Raj Anand

Mulk Raj Anand was born in Peshawar in 1905 and educated at the universities of Punjab and London. After earning his PhD in philosophy in 1929, Anand began writing for T.S. Eliot's magazine, the Criterion,as well as books on cooking and art. Recognition came with the publication of his first two novels, including his well- known trilogy - The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters ( 1940) and The Swaord and the Sickle ( 1942). By the time he returned to India in 1946 he was easily the best - known Indian writer abroad. Making Bombay his home and centre of activity, Anand threw himself headlong into the cultural and social life of India. He founded and edited the fine art magazine Marg, and has been the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, several honorary doctorates and other distinctions.

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