Heat and Dust (1975) is a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala that won the Booker Prize in 1975.

[1] The initial stages of the novel are told in the first person, from the narrative voice of a woman (who is not named) who travels to India, to find out more about her grandfather's first wife, Olivia.

We discover that Olivia, who is married to an English civil servant, while seeming to be a proper Englishwoman, is actually smothered by the social restrictions and longs for excitement.

The novel ends with the present-day narrator becoming pregnant to her Indian neighbour, and deciding to go to the same town where Olivia lived out her remaining years.

It was an award-winning film, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based upon her novel, directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant.