Letter from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, to James Ivory, New York, New York, 1975 January 3 : autograph manuscript signed.

Wishing Ivory a happy new year and assessing the events of the previous year as "very difficult" due to "jaundice"; discussing her recently completed novel "Heat and Dust" which "just went off to the typist this morning" and describing the plot, which involves "a woman in her late 20s" who travels to "the heart of Mother India" to "reconstruct the story of another Englishwoman who caused a scandal" in 1923; acknowledging the inevitability of her sickness since she spent "the summer in Sahipur and Khatm"; referring to the story as her "last tribute to British India on the one hand and to Royal India on the other" but after reading it through has decided that "what it all means isn't really one's business on a conscious level"; proclaiming it to be "a very, very personal book" and asking Ivory to read it before it goes to the printers; asking in a postscript whether he has sent her the "sponsorship letters" and asking to see that "Ismail applies for the same visa"; asking in the second letter written on the same day to read "Heat and Dust" and "check up" on the "1923 bits" to make sure she has her historical references right; inquiring about his holidays and describing her own spent with "some friends at the British High Commission" and New Years' Eve spent at "the Moynihans"; describing the various feelings she, Ivory, and Merchant have toward "passports" which she just sees as "useful documents".