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.