Meet the Patel-Joneses—Babo, Sian, Mayuri, and Bean—in their little house with orange and black gates next door to the Punjab Women's Association in Madras. Babo grew up here, but he and Sian, his cream-skinned Welsh love, met in London. Babo's parents disapproved. And then they disapproved unless the couple moved back to Madras. So here they are. And as the twentieth century creaks and croaks its way along, Babo, Sian, and the children navigate their way through the uncharted territory of a "hybrid" family: the hustle and bustle of Babo's relatives; the faraway phone-line crackle of Sian's; the eternal wisdom and soft bosom of Great-Grandmother Ba; the perils of first love, lost innocence, and old age; and the big question: What do you do with the space your loved ones leave behind? Tishani Doshi, a prizewinning poet, plunges into fiction for the first time with this tender and uplifting debut. With rich feeling and dazzling language, Doshi evokes both Zadie Smith and Rohinton Mistry as she captures the quirks and calamities of one unusual clan in a story of identity, family, belonging, and all-transcending love.
Author
Tishani Doshi (born 1975) is an Indian poet, journalist and dancer based in Chennai. Born in Madras, India, to a Welsh mother and Gujarati father, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2001. Her first poetry collection, Countries of the Body, won the 2006 Forward Poetry Prize for best first collection.[1] She has been invited to the poetry galas of the Guardian-sponsored Hay Festival of 2006 and the Cartagena Hay Festival of 2007. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010 and was long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2011,[2] and shortlisted for The Hindu Best Fiction Award in 2010. She writes a blog titled "Hit or Miss" on Cricinfo,[3] a cricket-related website. In the blog which she started writing in April 2009, Tishani Doshi makes observations and commentaries as a television viewer of the second season of the Indian Premier League. She is also collaborating with cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan on his biography, to be published when he retires.[4] She works as a freelance writer and worked with choreographer Chandralekha until the latter's death in December 2006.[5] She graduated with a Masters degree in creative writing from the Johns Hopkins University. Countries of the Body was launched in 2006 at the Hay-on-Wye festival on a platform with Seamus Heaney, Margaret Atwood, and others. The opening poem, The Day we went to the Sea, won the 2005 British Council supported All India Poetry Competition; she was also a finalist in the Outlook-Picador Non-Fiction Competition. Her short story Lady Cassandra, Spartacus and the dancing man was published in its entirety in the journal The Drawbridge in 2007.[6] Her most recent book of poetry, Everything Begins Elsewhere[7] was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2013. Her newest book, The Adulterous Citizen – poems stories essays (2015) was launched at the 13th annual St. Martin Book Fair by House of Nehesi Publishers, making Tishani Doshi the first important author from India to be published in the Caribbean. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tishani\_...
