The East Indian was WINNER OF THE 2025 SOCIETY OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS PRIZE (JAMES FENIMORE COOPER PRIZE) FOR HISTORICAL FICTION.
It was also SHORTLISTED FOR THE BARNES AND NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE AND THE CROSSWORD FICTION PRIZE and LONGLISTED FOR THE MARK TWAIN VOICE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE PRIZE AND THE JCB PRIZE.
The East Indian
A Novel
Inspired by a historical figure, The East Indian tells the story of Tony, a native of the Indian subcontinent who came to colonial America. A story of loss, love, and survival, that is also a story of the early years of the English settlement of Virginia
THE EAST INDIAN (2023)
Inspired by a historical figure, The East Indian tells
the story of Tony, a native of the Indian subcontinent who came to colonial
America. A story of loss, love, and survival, that is also a story of the early
years of the English settlement of Virginia
Tony—compassionate, insatiably curious, with a unique
perspective on every scene he encounters — is kidnapped and transported to the
New World after traveling from the Coromandel Coast of India to the teeming
streets of London. He finds himself indentured on a Virginia tobacco
plantation. Orphaned and afraid, Tony longs for home, and envisions a life
after servitude full of adventure and learning.
Like the play that captivates him—Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, which Tony saw at the Globe during his short time
in London—Tony’s life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humor and tragedy. Set
largely during the early days of English colonization in Jamestown, The East
Indian gives an authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historic figure and
brings his world to vivid life.
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"Brilliant, Highly-Imaginative And Vivid"
“History comes alive in this brilliant, highly-imaginative and vivid novel. Immersive and revelatory–a stellar achievement.”
— E.C. Osondo
Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing
Author of This House Is Not For Sale
"Memorable characters ... warmth and wit"
“Filled with memorable characters , The East Indian grapples with the brutal colonialism and indentured labour of the 1600s with warmth and wit.”
— Shashi Tharoor
Author of Inglorious Empire
Former UN Under-Secretary General.
"Utterly Enjoyable"
“Tony, the “East Indian” of the title of Brinda Charry’s utterly enjoyable debut novel, reads like a character straight out of Dickens.
Based on an actual historical figure, the first person from India documented in the records of Colonial Virginia, Tony ventures into the entangled richness of a nascent America—a place he calls, “this precarious edge of the world.” It is peopled by “servants”—both white and black, female and male—who find themselves as bound to the New World as they are to the Englishmen who rule it. Picaresque in style, lyrical of voice, gripping and authentic, The East Indian is a real treat.”
— David Wright Falade
Author of Black Cloud Rising