Burmese Days

by George Orwell

Burmese Days is the first novel by English writer George Orwell. Set in British Burma during the waning days of Empire, when Burma was ruled from Delhi as part of British India, it is "a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj." At the centre of the novel is John Flory, "the lone and lacking individual trapped within a bigger system that is undermining the better side of human nature. The novel describes "both indigenous corruption and imperial bigotry" in a society where, "after all, natives were natives-interesting, no doubt, but finally...an inferior people".