Mulk Raj Anand's Dinner Party, 6th August 1937

 Imaging the Scene bustling in a small kitchen, proudly serving a fiery curry; Dylan Thomas, glass of beer in hand, dramatic as ever, coughing and laughing at the heat; the whole table of young writers wiping their eyes while Anand chuckles. A dinner party of cultural exchange — and chaos!

So, what is known about this dinner party, on the 6th of August 1937

In the summer of 1937, at the height of London’s bohemian literary ferment, the young Welsh poet Dylan Thomas found himself at a dinner hosted by the Indian novelist Mulk Raj Anand, who was already known for his pioneering work in Indian English fiction. Anand, proud of his heritage and eager to share it with his circle of writers, artists, and intellectuals, prepared a fiery homemade curry—one of the first encounters many of his British friends would have had with truly authentic Indian cooking. The result was unforgettable: the curry was so blisteringly hot that, as Dylan later joked, “everyone was crying like Shirley Temple.” The scene must have been equal parts comedy and camaraderie—Anand bustling about with satisfaction, his guests laughing through their tears, and Dylan seizing the moment to turn discomfort into a lyrical quip. The incident, though light-hearted, symbolized something larger: the meeting of cultures in interwar London, where an Indian writer and a Welsh poet could sit at the same table, trading stories, flavours, and laughter, each leaving with memories that would find their way into letters and anecdotes for years to come.

So, who was Mulk Raj Anand?

Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004) stands as one of the foremost pioneers of Indian English literature, whose works bridged East and West while giving voice to the silenced and oppressed of Indian society. Born in Peshawar into a family from the coppersmith caste, he grew up acutely aware of the realities of hierarchy and discrimination, experiences that would later shape the social realism of his fiction. After studying at the University of Punjab, Anand moved to England in the 1920s, enrolling at University College London and later pursuing a doctorate at Cambridge. His years in London proved formative: immersed in intellectual debates, he encountered Marxist and socialist ideas, mingled with progressive writers and artists, and became involved in the anti-colonial and anti-fascist movements.

It was in this cosmopolitan setting that Anand forged friendships with many literary figures of the interwar years. He frequented the lively Fitzrovia district, where he moved in the same bohemian circles as Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, and other writers of the 1930s. Anand’s London flat became a gathering place where politics, literature, and culture mixed freely, and it was here, in 1937, that he famously served Thomas and others a fiery homemade curry so hot that the poet later quipped everyone “was crying like Shirley Temple.” This anecdote captures Anand’s role as a cultural bridge: introducing his British friends not only to Indian cuisine but also to the social and moral concerns of India, which he wove into his novels.

His literary career took flight during this period, with the publication of Untouchable (1935), a landmark novel that compressed into a single day the humiliations and resilience of Bakha, a young sweeper boy. This was followed by Coolie (1936), tracing the tragic wanderings of Munoo, and Two Leaves and a Bud (1937), which laid bare the exploitation of plantation workers under colonial rule. Anand’s prose, though in English, carried the cadences of Indian speech, embodying his belief that English could be reshaped to carry the cultural rhythms of the subcontinent.

By the late 1930s, Anand had established himself as both a novelist of international standing and an activist writer whose art was inseparable from his politics. His years in London not only provided the cosmopolitan environment in which his literary voice matured but also positioned him within a global network of anti-imperialist thinkers. Returning to India, he remained prolific for decades, leaving behind a vast body of fiction, essays, and criticism. Today, Anand is remembered not only as a founding figure of Indian English fiction but also as a humanist who used literature to affirm dignity, expose injustice, and weave Indian experience into the broader fabric of world literature.

During the 1930s, the cultural and Literacy Scene in the Fitzrovia District, was a vibrant centre of bohemian life, attracting writers, poets, artists, and political thinkers from Britain and abroad. Unlike the more genteel and intellectual Bloomsbury Group, Fitzrovia’s literary culture was defined by its pubs, cafés, and cheap lodgings, which provided informal spaces for creativity and debate. The district became a gathering ground for figures such as Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, Mulk Raj Anand, Lawrence Durrell, and Julian Maclaren-Ross, who mixed freely with painters, journalists, and European émigrés fleeing fascism.

The Fitzroy Tavern and the Wheatsheaf were legendary haunts where poetry was recited, novels were argued over, and politics—particularly socialism, Marxism, and anti-fascist causes—was hotly debated. The atmosphere was often unruly, fuelled by cheap beer and endless conversation, yet it fostered a creative energy that shaped much of the interwar literary scene. For writers like Anand, Fitzrovia offered a cosmopolitan space to introduce Indian perspectives into English cultural life, while for Thomas it became a stage for his dramatic personality and lyrical storytelling. In essence, Fitzrovia’s cultural and literary scene embodied the raw, experimental, and international spirit of the 1930s, where art, politics, and bohemian camaraderie constantly collided.

The Wheatsheaf was one of Thomas’s favourite haunts in the 1930s and 40s, where he often drank heavily and held court with fellow writers. On more than one occasion he was said to have misplaced, forgotten, or left behind notebooks and poems after long drinking sessions. A famous story tells of him losing part of a manuscript there — some versions say a draft of Under Milk Wood, others claim early poems — though it’s hard to separate truth from legend, since Thomas’s chaotic habits and pub life gave rise to many such tales.

What is certain is that contemporaries, including fellow Fitzrovia writers, recalled how Thomas often bartered poems for drinks, left scraps of writing on tables, or simply abandoned work in the haze of the pub.   So it is hard to know what works were “lost” at the Wheatsheaf