The Siege of Krishnapur

The Siege of Krishnapur is a novel by the Irish writer J. G. Farrell, first published in 1973. It was inspired by events that took place in the years around the mutiny of 1857, including the sieges of Cawnpore and Lucknow, and it won the Booker Prize.

The book describes the siege of a fictional Indian town during the rebellion of 1857, and it stays with the British residents inside it. Farrell shows them under the increasing restrictions and shortages of a siege, and the reversal is the point: the people who govern are the ones who now cannot leave, cannot eat and cannot keep up appearances.

India in the novel is in the hands of the East India Company, as it was in 1857, and the absurdity of the class system inside a town under attack is where much of the comedy comes from. The novel is serious in tone and intent underneath the comedy, and it was the middle book of a loose trilogy that also includes Troubles and Singapore Grip.