Dr. Shashi Tharoor's official website

Fiction Non-Fiction

Riot

10/September/2001

A powerful novel –set in and around a riot in India in 1989– about love, hate, cultural collision, religious fanaticism, the ownership of history, and the impossibility of knowing the truth... by the award-winning author of The Great Indian Novel.

Who killed twenty-four-year-old Priscilla Hart? And why would anyone want to murder this highly motivated, idealistic American student who had come to India to volunteer in women’s health programs? Had her work make a killer out of an enraged husband? Or was her death the result of a xenophobic attack? Was she involved in an indiscriminate love affair that had spun out of control? Had a disgruntled, deeply jealous colleague been pushed to the edge? Or was she simply the innocent victim of a riot that had exploded in that fateful year of 1989 between Hindus and Muslims?

In his long-awaited new novel, Shashi Tharoor, the acclaimed author of The Great Indian Novel and Show Business, whom the Independent (London) called “one of the finest novelists writing in English today,” once again triumphs. Experimenting masterfully with narrative form, he chronicles the mystery of Priscilla Hart’s death through the often contradictory accounts of a dozen or more characters, all of whom relate their own versions of the events surrounding her killing. Like his two previous novels, Riot probes and reveals the richness of India, and by employing a dozen different voices, brings out the complexity of the political and cultural collisions that lie at the heart of his story.

In plot, style, and characterisation, Shashi Tharoor’s novel is a brilliant tour de force.

- Shashi Tharoor

To buy the book, click on any of the links below:
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Reviews

Review By Moitrayee Bhaduri on Oxfordbookstore.com

Shashi Tharoor’s fast paced ‘Riot- A Novel’ is an exciting mix of love, hate, hope and despair in a society desperately trying to throw off the shackles of religious orthodoxy and cultural barriers,

"Riot" by Shashi Tharoor: A Book Review by Jui Navare

In 1989 a major political party in India, declared as a campaign issue, to reclaim the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya for the Hindus to build a Ram temple. The ongoing debate that the site of the 16^th century mosque

Booklist Review by Elsa Gaztambide

There is no finer guide through the multilayered intricacies of India's diverse ideologies than Tharoor, a longtime UN diplomat and celebrated author. His latest novel opens with the murder of Priscilla Hart

An ingenious story - Library Journal (13 August 2001)

Drawing on his political savvy as a senior United Nations official, Tharoor

Publisher's Weekly (13 August 2001)

The death of an American woman in India serves as the pretext for a thoughtful

The Riot Choice - Delhi Times (17 August 2001)

The man who has carved a niche for himself in the international literary scene

The Great Indian Novelist returns with a Riot - The Pioneer (18 August 2001)

You can take him out of India but you can't take India out of him.

Writers Raise a Toast to Tharoor - Hindustan Times (18 August 2001)

For a change, Shashi Tharoor's launch of his latest navel, Riot at the Taj Mahal Hotel,

Once upon this time - The Asian Age (19 August 2001)

Nothing stirs up a writer like other writers, and nothing stirs up a reviewer more than a novel

I'm Kerala's last Illiterate - The Statesman (19 August 2001)

The man who has carved a niche for himself in the international literary scene

Big Stories, Little Lives - Express Magazine (26 August 2001)

THERE are, understandably, so many novels essaying the Great National Narrative

Back to the Future - First City (September 2001)

I have been increasingly concerned about the communal divisions

It's a Riot of All Emotions - Deccan Chronicle (2 September 2001)

Priscilla Hart is stabbed 16 times by unknown assailants during a communal riot

SILENCE! It's a riot - Deccan Chronicle (18 September 2001)

Shashi Tharoor has always led two lives.

Bookforum - Fall 2001

THE nonlinear narrative tradition is apparently infectious this fall.

Riot takes on a communal tinderbox - India Currents, October 2001

Read More ...

Fictional Representation of the Past - The Book Review, Delhi (October 2001)

Novelist, political analyst and commentator, Shashi Tharoor lives in New York where he works as a diplomat for the UNO

Review in The Asian Wall Street Journal, (14 December 2001)

In his 1994 novel, "Beethoven Among the Cows," Rukun Advani told the story of two Indian brothers, anglicized and urbane

Passion and Politics in Newsline, Karachi (Pakistan)(February 2002)

The often alarming proximity of love, hate and history is richly drawn out in Shashi Tharoor’s

Scholarly Discussion by Dr. Manju Roy, CM College, Darbhanga, India, ( March 2002)

Shashi Tharoor once again shot into fame with the publication of his sixth book Riot