Would Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust be published today? Opinions were divided on its merits even when it won the Booker Prize 50 years ago. The novel still garners attention, not least because of the 1983 Merchant‑Ivory film adaptation for which Jhabvala herself wrote the screenplay. A decade ago, it even appeared on the UK Telegraph’s list of “the ten best Asian novels of all time”.

Jhabvala’s eighth novel intercuts between two Indias and two liaisons. The simmering tensions between British and Indian ways of life in the 1920s and the 1970s frame the stories of two women whose lives are clearly meant to echo each other.

In the earlier timeline, we meet Olivia, the beautiful, restless wife of a British colonial officer. Bored by the rituals of Anglo-Indian society, she begins an affair with the local Nawab, a charming Indian prince with his own agenda.

The second story is narrated by the unnamed granddaughter of Olivia’s husband by his second wife. She journeys to India to retrace Olivia’s steps, pieces together her tale from old letters and diaries, and has an affair with her Indian landlord, a local government employee. Along the way, the reader is treated to sights of overflowing gutters, packed buses, winds that blow...

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