Jeffrey Archer’s death mourned in India, the country where he became an unlikely superstar

The death of Jeffrey Archer has prompted an outpouring of tributes from readers in India, a country which he described as his biggest market and where many of his later books received their earliest release date.

Archer’s books were best-sellers in India and can be found in large numbers in bookshops across the country. He said he was connected to India via a shared love for cricket, calling the people of India his “natural friends”, but otherwise found his huge following in the country baffling.

The author of Kane and Abel, The Fourth Estate and The Clifton Chronicles series was welcomed like a celebrity at events in India. His appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2019 drew nearly 8,000 people to hear him speak.

“I was absolutely staggered. It was like a concert,” he told the PTI news agency in an interview in 2020.

He said he was often asked “why do you sell millions in India?”.

“I still can’t honestly answer that question,” was his reply. “But I am so lucky that so many millions of people in India read me,” he told PTI. “Indians and I have always been natural friends.”

Archer died on Monday, aged 86, the day before the release of Adam and Evewhich he had described as his final novel after 50 years of storytelling.

He died “suddenly and peacefully at his home between writing sessions”, his publisher HarperCollins said.

On Tuesday, as the news of his death landed, Indian readers remembered him for his page-turning plots, twists and cliffhangers that kept generations up late into the night.

One reader, Vennila Thayumanavan, described the novelist’s death as a “heartbreak”.

“Kane and Abel, my first love story with a book. This sure is a heartbreak. I will miss this man,” she wrote on X.

Rana Safvi, a historian, shared a photograph of herself posing with a smiling Archer.

“Rest in peace Lord Jeffrey Archer. Loved your books. They’ve given me so much joy over the years and so glad I could meet you,” she wrote. “You were so gracious and warm.”

Politician Priyanka Chaturvedi described Archer as “another favourite fiction writer I grew up reading”.

“A writer till the end. He leaves a legion of readers broken hearted, rest in peace and thank you for your books!” she said.

Author Amish Tripathi remembered the late novelist “a friend and mentor” and described him as “an icon for storytellers”.

Another admirer described Archer as a rare writer who produced stories and characters that became a part of readers’ lives. “His passing feels like A Twist in the Tale one wishes had never been written. From Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and Kane and Abel to The Prodigal Daughter, A Matter of Honour, First Among Equals, As the Crow Flies and The Clifton ChroniclesArcher possessed that extraordinary ability to hold the reader until the very last page,” Sudheendhra Putty wrote.

She said the world had lost a “master raconteur”, but his stories remained, waiting to be discovered and rediscovered.

Mandeep Brar shared a picture of his collection of Jeffrey Archer books. “You have always been with us on long journeys.”

Some of Archer’s books were released in India before they hit the shelves in his home market, and for an unusual reason. Rampant book piracy in India meant his latest releases could appear on the streets of Indian cities within days of being published in the UK.

“The problem in India is pirate editions,” Archer told The Times of India in 2016. If publishers didn’t launch his books in India first, he noted, pirates could get hold of copies and put them on the streets before legitimate bookshops did.

India received the final instalment of The Clifton Chronicles series two days before the UK and four days before the US.

Archer had first-hand experience of how quickly pirated copies of his books could reach Indian streets.

Sitting in Mumbai’s notorious traffic during a visit, he spotted a young boy carrying a pile of books that included his latest release.

“Would you like the latest Jeffrey Archer?” the boy asked.

“I am the latest Jeffrey Archer,” the novelist replied.

Archer went on to retell the encounter for years, including in a diary for The Spectator in 2015.

Despite his love for India and frequent visits to the country, Archer only occasionally included Indian characters or themes in his writing. Priya Ghuman in The Clifton Chronicles and an inter-caste couple in the story Caste Offinspired by an Indian couple he met during one of his visits, were rare exceptions.

He said he deliberately avoided setting an entire novel in India because, as an outsider, he felt he did not know the country deeply enough.

Archer’s love of cricket brought him closer to Indian fans and helped forge friendships with some of the country’s biggest players. He counted Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Rahul Dravid, and Anil Kumble among friends or acquaintances. He had admired former India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi since his days in Oxford and once jokingly described himself as “the Sachin Tendulkar of England”.

His passion for the sport followed him even into prison. Archer was photographed umpiring prison cricket matches while serving a sentence for perjury in 2001.

A jury found Archer had fabricated an alibi during his 1987 libel case against the Daily Starand he was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released early in 2003 after serving just over two years.