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A Time for Tigers

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"Time for a Tiger" was the first work of fiction by Anthony Burgess to be published, in 1956. It is set in the British protectorate of Malaya, or the Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia), where Burgess served as an education officer for the British Colonial Service in the 1950s. He first taught at the private boy's school called Malay College in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, which served as a model for the school in the book. Burgess subsequently wrote two more novels set during Britain's last years in Malaya, which became known as his Malayan Trilogy and were eventually published together in a collection entitled "The Long Day Wanes".

Burgess' intention in "Time for a Tiger" seems to be to paint a picture of the almost unparalleled variety of life in Malaya and the experience of British expatriates in the protectorate's waning years, making him one of the last contributors to the body of colonial literature. The novel's characters speak a vernacular mix of English, Malay, Urdu, and Arabic (words and phrases are defined in a glossary at the back of the book) and go about their business doing nothing of great importance, while collaborating and bouncing off each other, all within the same, odd social melee.

Victor Crabbe in an English teacher of history at the multicultural Mansor School, where he clashes with the strict headmaster. Victor's second wife Fenella dreads the heat of Malaya and the presumptuousness of its population. Nabby Adams is a police lieutenant, alcoholic and in debt to everyone he knows. Alladad Khan is a Punjabi Police Transport corporal, a subordinate of Adams, forced into an unhappy marriage and feeling misunderstood and out of place. The mind-boggling mix of religions, ethnicities, and politics creates a chaotic and absurd environment in which the characters' personal problems intertwine and play out.