The Siege of Krishnapur

Summary

During the 1857 Indian Rebellion, the British residents of a fictional outpost retreat behind makeshift walls as their certainties crumble alongside their food supplies. Farrell deploys a dry, ironic comedy that contrasts the high Victorian faith in progress with the squalor of actual siege life, making the book both a thrilling historical novel and a sustained critique of empire. It remains the central panel of his loosely linked Empire Trilogy.