Playing the Game

Buruma''s prismatic fascinating first novel is a portrait of Ranji the cricket player who was not simply the greatest cricketer of all time but a fairy tale prince . . . so famous that children sang songs about him and grown men wept when they saw him play. Buruma weaves the adventures of an unnamed narrator together with a (fictional) undiscovered memoir of Ranji to create a witty and reverbatory meditation on England India and the post-colonial sense of self.