Support Us
Five Books
 
Search
MENUMENU
  • Nonfiction
        • Art
          • Architecture
          • Art History
          • Design & Illustration
          • Fashion & Style
          • Modern and Contemporary Art
          • Photography
        • Business
          • How to Invest
          • Leadership
          • Marketing
        • Economics
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • Globalization Books
          • World Economies
        • Environmental Books
          • Climate Change Books
          • Environmental Ethics
        • Food & Cooking
          • The Best Cookbooks
          • Food & History of Food
          • Wine & Drinks
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
          • Family & Relationships
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
        • History Books
          • American History
          • Ancient History (up to 500)
          • Modern History (1800-1945)
          • History of Science
          • Historical Figures
          • Military History
        • Language
          • Grammar & Punctuation
          • Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Law
        • Literary Nonfiction
          • Biography
          • Essays
          • Memoir
          • Artists' Biographies
          • Travel
          • True Crime
        • Music & Drama
          • Classical Music & Opera
          • Film & Cinema
          • Music
          • Theatre
        • Nature
          • Dinosaurs & the Prehistoric World
          • The Earth
          • Plants, Trees & Flowers
        • Philosophy
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Politics & Society
          • War
          • Feminism
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • Human Rights
          • Terrorism
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Psychoanalysis
          • Psychology Research
          • Self Help
        • Religion
          • Best Atheist Books
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History Books
        • Science
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Geoscience
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Moon Landing
          • Popular Science
          • Physics
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
          • Football (Soccer)
          • Gardening
          • Hobbies
          • Sport & Sporting Culture
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence
          • Computing
          • Digital Age
          • History of Technology
          • Internet
  • Fiction & Literature
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classical Studies
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • NEW Fiction
        • Poetry
        • Memoir
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Burma
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Spain
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
        • Russia & FSU
          • Azerbaijan
          • Georgia
          • Russia
          • Ukraine
  • Kids
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • High School Teachers Recommendations
        • Novels & Novelists
        • Ages 3-5
        • Ages 6-8
        • Ages 9-12
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • Best Kids Books of 2021
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • History
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Family
        • Science
        • Mental Health
  • Best Books 2021
        • Audiobooks
        • Biography
        • Memoir
        • Fiction
          • Fantasy
          • Mystery
        • Kids
        • Teens
  • New Books
  • Audiobooks
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Booker Prize
    • Baillie Gifford Prize
    • Royal Society
    • Wolfson Prize
    • Walter Scott Prize
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize
    • Audie Awards
    • Nobel Prize
  • Experts

Literary Nonfiction » Travel

Raag Darbari by Shrilal Shukla (translated by Gillian Wright)
Buy now

Raag Darbari

by Shrilal Shukla (translated by Gillian Wright)

Recommendations from our site

“I love this book because it is a rather cynical, but wonderfully humorous, portrayal of life in an Indian village in Uttar Pradesh, around the time of independence and a bit later as well. I have been in many of these villages and written stories about villages myself, and I think that it is much the best book I have ever read about that sort of life in India. So many of the books that are highly praised about India are about the middle classes, or else they are about urban India and present a very bleak, black-with-no-white picture of it. This one has black, white and grey. It has enormous humour and is about rural, semi-rural and urbanising India. I find it absolutely fascinating and also a very good laugh.” Read more...

The best books on India

Mark Tully, Foreign Correspondent

“This is a book about a village in India in the 1960s and it’s about how everybody in that village is involved in the politics of that village, and it’s all to do with striving to become the dominant force, either in the agricultural co-operative or in the local college, and there are endless conflicts about who’s going to be elected and what’s going to happen. It’s all to do with influence in the village. When there is an impasse they all go and get stoned. They drink the cannabis actually, mixing it with yoghurt, which they call bhang lassi, and that seems to solve the problem. It would probably solve a lot of problems in politics in England too! It’s written as a satire but actually a lot of the things in this book, the violence and the criminals getting involved in politics have now overtaken these areas, particularly in Uttar Pradesh where this novel is set. So Sukla, who is still alive and was a government official himself, is now amazed by how real events have overtaken what he wrote as a satire.” Read more...

The best books on Indian Journeys

Roy Moxham, Historian

Our most recommended books

  • The Road to Oxiana
    by Robert Byron

  • The Way of the World
    by Nicolas Bouvier

  • The Worst Journey in the World
    by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

  • Raag Darbari
    by Shrilal Shukla (translated by Gillian Wright)

  • Arctic Dreams
    by Barry Lopez

  • The Argumentative Indian
    by Amartya Sen

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount.

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service

© Five Books 2021