Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann; The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan - review by David Gilmour

David Gilmour

Divided It Stands

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire

By

Simon & Schuster 464pp £20

The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan

By

Yale University Press 251pp £19.99
 

Indian Summer is surely destined for Hollywood. Equipped with a handsome and flamboyant cast, Alex von Tunzelmann has already more or less arranged the settings, designed the costumes and produced a script which flits from place to place and from character to character, deftly interweaving private lives with political events in a racy, dramatic and often humorous narrative.

It’s easy to envisage some colourful scenes: ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten and ‘David’ Prince of Wales larking about in a pool and pig-sticking in Jodhpur (frivolous upper-class background); Mountbatten as viceroy and his wife Edwina having nightly rows in midsummer Delhi (marital stress and pathos); Gandhi on his day of silence visiting

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter