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Amir Ali leaves his village in Bihar to travel to London with an English captain, William Meadows, to whom he narrates the story of his life – the story of a murderous thug. While Meadows tries to analyse the strange cult of the Indian Thug, a group of Englishmen sets out to prove the inherent difference between cultures and people by examining their skulls – with bizarre consequences.
Set in Victorian London, this story of different voices from different places draws intricate lines of connection from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, between England and India, across individual and cultural differences.
Known for his refusal to fit his work into established `diasporic`, subalternist or post-colonialist narrative traditions, in The Thing About Thugs, Khair finally engages with these traditions by subtly and ironically deploying echoes from Victorian literature, ranging from Charles Dickens to P.M. Taylor`s Confessions of a Thug and Joseph Conrad`s Heart of Darkness.
`Khair`s skill lies in making us question our assumptions about what we do and why we do it.` – New Statesman
Formally and intellectually intrepid, and emotionally resonant, Tabish Khair`s novels are some of the most exciting to have come out of the Indian subcontinent.` Pankaj Mishra
ISBN-9788172239787
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Pages : 256
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