The Sword and the Sickle is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Mulk Raj Anand

Mulk Raj Anand

Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R.K...

 first published in 1942. Like his other novels, this one also deals with the topic of social and political structures, specifically, the rise of Communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

. The title for the book was given to Anand by George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

. The novel was in keeping with British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writings of the time. The book was the final part of the trilogy that included The Village

The Village (book)

The Village is a novel by Mulk Raj Anand first published in 1939. This book was the first of a trilogy that included Across the Black Waters and The Sword and the Sickle. The plot centers around India's political structure, specifically the British rule and the independence movement...

and Across the Black Waters.