Slavery may be over, but plantation life continues—and for the Indians lured to Mauritius with the promise of gold under every stone, freedom is a distant memory. For village dreamer Kissan, freedom is worth fighting for—and when he meets former soldier and runaway convict Kundan, the two men encourage their community of indentured labourers to fight for their rights. With Kundan’s experience and Kissan’s charisma, the immigrants begin to hope for a future unterrorised by the plantocracy. They begin to hope for a life in which they can maintain their culture without subterfuge—and for Kissan, at the cusp of adulthood, for a life in which he can be with his love, the valiant Rekha, without fear.

But revolution isn’t easy, and on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, nature waits for no one: hard-fought gains are washed away by colonial politics, by internecine struggle, by cyclones.

Blood-red Sweat is not a historical novel, and it is not history, because its characters are not the kings, governors, or any other statesmen who usually feature in historical novels. Instead, its characters are brave, and devoted to the land that eventually crushed them between the millstones of history.

Blood-red Sweat is a saga for the ages, its demonstration of the power of community, a beacon for us all in the contemporary world.