The Last Prince of Bengal

Weaving in scandals, broken marriages and political machinations to enthralling effect, The Last King of Bengal is the extraordinary portrait of a royal family’s fall from power between 1840 and 1940. A family story that exposes the complex prejudices regarding class and race, work and family, religion and gender, at the heart of recent British and Indian history.

Lyn Innes is the great-grand daughter of His Royal Highness , the last Nawab Nizam of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Born and educated in Australia, she moved to North America and developed her interest in cultural nationalism, focusing on Irish, African, African American and Caribbean literatures. She earned a PhD from Cornell University, and taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she became associate editor for the journal Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe founded, OKIKE: An African Journal of New Writing. She also co-edited two volumes of African short stories with Achebe. Innes is currently Emeritus Professor of Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent, Canterbury.