Coffee Morning with Shrabani Basu to discuss her book Victoria and Abdul

An assistant clerk at Agra Central Jail, Abdul Karim suddenly found himself a personal attendant to the Empress of India herself, and he was only 24 years of age.

Within a year, he became a powerful figure at court, the queen’s teacher, or Munshi, he taught her Urdu and instructed her in Indian affairs. Devastated by the death of John Brown, her Scottish ghillie, the queen had at last found his replacement.

But her intense and controversial relationship with the Munshi led to a near-revolt in the royal household. This is a tender love story between an ordinary Indian and his elderly queen, a relationship that survived the best attempts to destroy it.

Booking essential