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A Black Englishman, Carolyn Slaughter
Penguin
Reviewed by Lindsay Wright (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

British war refugee Isobel, fleeing the post-war mayhem in 1920s Europe, marries a career soldier and embarks for India. Fairly standard colonial stuff but Isobel is upper middle class and hubby Gerald is working class, so she realises by arrival that the union won't work – just like Mummy said it wouldn't.

Within weeks she has fallen for a handsome Indian doctor who's closer to her perceived social caste...but he's black, a black Englishman, in fact.

The pair lead a peripatetic lifestyle around India, pursued by brutish Gerald, the jilted soldier, while Isobel tries to find a new identity for herself as...a white Indian.

A Black Englishman tackles some broad themes: racism, colonialism, sexuality and religious intolerance against a background of the white Raj and the steamy regions or hilly north of India, while that country struggles with independence from Britain.

It is Carolyn Slaughter's ninth novel and is based on the life of her grandmother, who was incarcerated in an asylum for cohabiting with a male Indian. Despite annoying lapses into modern speak, it is an engaging read and a powerful story.