The Imperial Agent

by Timeri N. Murari

Now a grown man, Kimball O'Hara, the hero of Kipling's novel "Kim," finds himself torn between his love for India and his duty to England

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, India

414 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Timeri Murari is an award winning writer, filmmaker, and playwright, who began his career as journalist on the Kingston Whig Standard in Ontario, Canada. He writes for the Guardian, Sunday Times, and other magazines and newspapers internationally. He has published both fiction and non-fiction, and his bestselling novel, Taj, was translated into 19 lanugages and has recently been reissued by Penguin India. In 2006, he published a memoir, My Temporary Son, exploring the difficulties of adopting a desperately ill orphan. Timeri now lives with his wife in his ancestral home of Chennai, India.

Reviews

[Trevor Schaefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book illustrates the saying "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". It was written as a sequel to Rudyard Kipling's Kim. The Indian author imagines Kimball O'Hara as an adult, still working for the British secret service, but discovering that this allegiance is in conflict with his love of the Indian people. If you have read Kim, then this is well worth reading.

[Shawn Israels · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have enjoyed the book as a historical fiction, the beautiful India and it's natives in English India- the adding of "superstitious or demonic" powers of certain characters was not kosher for me.

[HyL · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a bit of a trend these days for authors to take up characters from other author's fiction, and continue their story (eg: Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James, but based on characters created by Jane Austin, or Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire, based on character created by L. Frank Baum). Timeri Murari did it back in 1989, with Rudyard Kipling's famous Kim. Yet as a South Asian writing with a character created by the Colonial-Era participant, Murari has repatriated Kim, bringing that colonial-hybrid directly into the reality of contemporary and perhaps perpetually hybridizing India. The Imperial Agent reads like the first of a series but no follow-ups have appeared, that I can find. The story concerns Kim's expoits as a secret agent handled by a British spy master; this in tandem with his search for a guru to help him attain his spiritual destiny. Kim, in Murari's hands, is as much an analog for India going into independence as he is a vehical for examining the political and social machinations of that tumultuous process and their impacts for the people - Britsh, Indian, and Anglo-Indian, involved. This book is adventure, history and social commentary all in one. I wish Murari had written a sequel.

[Shubhi Vijay]

It promises much more than it delivers but the plot is a different one and he paints a vivid picture of Pre-Independence India.