It was in the second half of 1997 that I first came across Patrick French’s work. I was a bit late; French was already two books old by then. Oddly, I learned of his work through an interview with him published in the Sunday supplement of an English daily. It was barely a few weeks after the publishing of his second book, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Partition – a book that caused quite a stir for seeing the events, key figures and moves leading to Partition in a revisionist light.
The interview mostly focused on the themes and controversies that surfaced after French’s portrayal of this eventful, intriguing phase of history. I snipped it from the newspaper, tucked it into a file, and read my first Patrick French book.
