Red Tea is an English historical novel written by Paul Harris Daniel. It was published in Madras by Higginbotham's in 1969.[ Bala a master at crafting the story of slavery]
Background
Daniel was born on May 22, 1910.
Daniel was a medical doctor and had worked in a series of
Assam tea plantations in South India as chief medical officer from 1941 to 1965. He also acted as a
Union organizer. During that time, he had interviewed workers, obtaining signed statements, developing material from which he used to write the novel. Though a work of fiction detailing the lives of Karuppan and Valli,
Red Tea was written with an "explicit documentary purpose". It details how the Madras Planters Act of 1903 led to the poor conditions of plantation workers. Debt bondage of the workers, their poor working conditions, their inability to escape their life are all captured in the novel.
Translation and adaptation
It was translated into
Tamil language as
Eriyum Panikaadu by Ira. Murugavel.
The 2013 Tamil film Paradesi was adapted from the novel.
