Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German-Jewish refugee educated in England, made her name as a novelist in India. Married to a Parsi architect, she saw, from the inside, the many layers of Indian society. She eventually moved to New York, where she remained a shrewdly observant outsider, ‘always a cuckoo in the nest’.

This event weaves together two of her finest stories, the Booker Prize-winning novel Heat and Dust, and scenes from the film Autobiography of a Princess. Both stories cast light on the English encounter with India and contain much that mirrors, through Ruth’s eyes, its splendours and miseries.

Honor Borwick has worked in the theatre, publishing, independent television and film, theatre, and radio as a script editor. This will be her fourth year producing a theatrical piece for Jewish Book Week.

Tristram Powell is a film and television director whose credits include adaptations of Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer and Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Falling.

Devised, written and directed by Tristram Powell. Produced by Honor Borwick.