The English Problem: A Novel
By Beena Kamlani
Crown Publishing, 2025

Inspired by the author’s uncle, Shiv Advani is no ordinary young man. He has been chosen by Mahatma Gandhi to go to England, learn their laws, and return home to help drive the British out of India. He soon discovers a world he is both repelled by and drawn to. He sees how the empire has seeped into everything—not just land, but literature, language, religion, sexuality, and self-identity. Before long, the people Shiv sought to be liberated from will be the people he desperately wants to be a part of. In the end, Shiv must fight not only for his country’s liberation but also his own.

This event is presented in partnership with Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. 

About the Author
Beena Kamlani is a Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer whose work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and other publications. A former senior editor for the Penguin Group, she taught book editing at New York University for nearly two decades. The English Problem is her first novel.

Purchase the book
Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
The History Book Festival is the first and only book festival in the United States devoted exclusively to history. With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices | PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2025 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. 

Thanks to all of our donors, especially our education and outreach funding partners: Ronald Collins & Susan Cohen, Carolyn & Aaron Nayer, Jen Mason & Clare Hancock, and Browseabout Books. HBF authors visit classrooms in Delaware, and HBF provides their books to schools, libraries, and community organizations.

Our Keynote event is presented by Griswold Home Care for Sussex and Kent Counties and Sally Mott Freeman & John K. Freeman; our Closing event is presented by the Delaware Community Foundation. Saturday’s Spirited Discussion, our gathering for attendees and presenters to celebrate and discuss their day, is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our Founding Program Partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library, for event promotion and production, and Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Thanks also to the  Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.