The Guptas

Fred Gupta
AuthorHouse: £10.99

The Guptas is a story of three generations of Indian men and their journey from the subcontinent, to South Africa and finally ending up in America.

Fred Gupta begins his tale at the end of the 19th Century by introducing us to Gani, his hardworking and entrepreneurial Grandfather.

Gani is born into a small, poverty-stricken village in India and from an early age exploited his precocious talents as a boy salesman, to become a market trader.

Determined to improve his family’s dire financial situation he succeeded in building up a small business that supported his whole family, before then making the harrowing trip to South Africa by boat, where Fred Gupta’s father was born.

Fred Gupta’s debut book, details his family’s struggles as they develop a thriving business against a backdrop of violence, intimidation and state sponsored racism.

Few people will know what it was like to grow up under an apartheid regime that legalised segregation and legitimized racial hatred, but Fred Gupta does an excellent job of keeping you interested in his family’s story while setting the scene of what it was like as a black or ‘coloured’ person trying to make a living in the face of such adversity.

As a young man, Fred sets off to find the American Dream where he discovers how it feels to be an equal citizen (most of the time), and charts his own efforts to knock down doors and find employment before eventually achieving enormous personal and financial success, and then almost losing everything again.

The Guptas is a nicely written biographical story depicting an ongoing generational struggle to ‘fit in’ and find a sense of belonging that will resonate with expats and global nomads everywhere.

Shelley Antscherl
books@dutchnews.nl