About Stanley Wolpert's Novel Nine Hours To Rama

Stanley Wolpert is an American historian, Indologist, and author on the political and intellectual history of modern India and Pakistan. He has written fiction and nonfiction books on the topics.
 He taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1959-2002.

 He received a B.A. from City College in 1953,and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 and 1959, Wolpert began his academic career in 1959, when he took a job as an instructor in the Department of History at UCLA.

 He was promoted in 1960-63 to assistant professor.  He is now an emeritus professor. In 1975 Wolpert was awarded UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Though Wolpert is known for his biographies including Jinnah of Pakistan (1982) and Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan (1993), and several other books, butt he has also contributed in fiction including two of his well-known novels Massacre At Jallianwala Bagh (1990) and Nine Hours To Rama (1962), in 1963, this novel was adopted into film.

Nine Hours To Rama:

This is a novel about assassination of India's most popular political leader Mahatma Gandhi. The novel is  set in the nine hours in the life of Nathuram Godse that led up to his assassination of  Gandhi.

As he prepares for the shooting at Gandhi's residence, flashbacks recall Godse's hostility to Muslims, his adherence to a militant Hindu group that hatches the plot to kill Gandhi, and his involvement with a married woman Rani  and a whore Sheila.

 Meanwhile, a police officer Supt. Gopal Das attempts to find the killer before it is too late. Finally Gandhi is assassinated and after that the killer regrets upon the crime he committed.

The novel is full of twists and suspense that keep the reader intact and increase the curiosity to read further, the novel is extended to 380 pages approximately and it was published by Random House, New York. However, the novel was termed controversial by the Indian government and was banned in India.