Untouchable

Bakha is a young man, proud and even attractive, yet none the less he is an outcast in India's caste system: an Untouchable. In deceptively simple prose this groundbreaking novel describes a day in the life of Bakha, sweeper and toilet-cleaner, as he searches for a meaning to the tragic existence he has been born into - and comes to an unexpected conclusion. Mulk Raj Anand poured a vitality, fire and richness of detail into his controversial work, which led him to be acclaimed as his country's Charles Dickens and one of the twentieth century's most important Indian writers.

Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) was among the most highly regarded Indian novelists who wrote in English. Born in Peshawar, he lived in England for many years before settling in a village in Western India after World War II.
 
Ramachandra Guha is the author of a forthcoming two-volume biography of Gandhi and is a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.