The Last of Earth A Novel

Deepa Anappara

eBook - 2026

From the award-winning author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line comes a “splendid” (The New York Times) novel set in nineteenth-century Tibet that follows two outsiders—an Indian schoolteacher spying for the British Empire and an English “lady” explorer—as they venture into a forbidden kingdom.“An epic, perilous odyssey . . . scrupulous in its excavation of our spooky, imperfect pasts.”—The Guardian 1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rap­idly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians—permitted to cross borders that white men may not—to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet.Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher ...who, for several years, has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and... more