Bombay
Masters of the opium trade: the fabulous wealth of the Sassoons
David Abulafia admires the shrewdness, generosity and panache of the Sassoons over many generations
The wanderings of Ullis: Low, by Jeet Thayil, reviewed
Jeet Thayil’s previous novel, The Book of Chocolate Saints, an account of a fictional Indian artist and poet told in…
Return to the lost city
During a press interview in Bombay about his latest book, the author-narrator of Friend of My Youth feels ‘a surge…
From the start, I knew I’d be the Independent’s last print editor
I knew, the minute my job was first mooted, on the steps of San Francesco church in the sun-drenched, mafia-infested…
A Labour MP defends the Empire – and only quotes Lenin twice
In a grand history of the British empire — because that is what this book really is — you might…
