Clinton, founder and head of a firm of international engineers, arrives in India to build a dam, bringing with him his young wife, Helen, and a strong team of aides and skilled men. They are faced with a formidable challenge, which involves working in daunting mountain and jungle terrain, within a time schedule dictated by the extreme tropical weather.

Setbacks occur which bring into focus fundamental differences in the attitudes to life and death of the British bosses and the Indian workers. A timely reminder of the British contempt for Indian lives and for nature.

'An absorbing tale about mechanical strength and spiritual weakness, physical certainties and moral doubts. It is set in modern India, but the conflict of values at its heart is universal' John Masters, author, Bhowani Junction

Kamala Markandaya (1924 – 2004) was born in Mysore, India. She studied history at Madras University and later worked for a small progressive magazine before moving to London in 1948 in pursuit of a career in journalism. There she began writing. Nectar in a Sieve, her first novel published in 1954, was an international best-seller, translated into 17 languages. The Nowhere Man - originally published in 1972 and the only novel Markandaya wrote about England – describes the everyday racism experienced by immigrants on a South London street. Her 1969 novel, The Coffer Dams, is a prophetic novel set in India about the attempt to tame nature with disastrous results. Her three novels are now available in new editions from Small Axes. An essential figure in the post-colonial cannon.