Paperbacks: The Solitude Of Emperors, by David Davidar

Davidar's second novel is set against the religious and political unrest of India in the early 1990s. Vijay, a journalist on "The Indian Secularist", is just getting to know Bombay when riots rip through the city.

Shocked by violence, he is sent by his kindly employer to recuperate on a tea plantation in the Nilgiri mountains, where he defends a Christian-Hindu shrine. Davidar's brand of gentle didacticism pervades a tender tale.