Belonging by Umi Sinha
Umi Sinha's unforgettable debut is an intense, compelling and finely wrought epic of love and loss, of race and ethnicity, of homeland - and of belonging.Lila Langdon is twelve years old when she witnesses a family tragedy after her mother unveils her father's surprise birthday present - a tragedy that ends her childhood in India and precipitates a new life in Sussex with her great-aunt Wilhelmina.From the darkest days of the British Raj through to the aftermath of the First World War, Belonging by Umi Sinha tells the interwoven story of three generations and their struggles to understand and free themselves from a troubled history steeped in colonial violence. It is a novel of secrets that unwind through Lila's story, through her grandmother's letters home from India and the diaries kept by her father, Henry, as he puzzles over the enigma of his birth and his stormy marriage to the mysterious Rebecca.
Umi Sinha was born in the military hospital in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1952 to an English mother and Indian father. She grew up in India in the decade following Independence, when there was deeply held resentment against the British. She moved to Britain in 1968 during the backlash against the mass immigration of Asians who had been expelled from Uganda and Kenya. The experience of being an outsider looking for a place to belong, along with the impact of history - political and personal - on individual lives, is a major theme in her writing. Umi has an MA in Creative Writing and taught at the University of Sussex for ten years. She teaches creative writing classes and workshops, runs a performance storytelling club and offers a mentoring and manuscript appraisal service for writers called Writing Clinic. She is also a trained mediator and trustee at her local community centre. She has had short stories published, including in Cosmopolitan magazine and in a Serpent Tail's anthology. Her debut novel, Belonging (Myriad, September 2015), has been listed for several prestigious awards, most notably the Author's Club Best First Novel Award.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781908434746 |
| ISBN 10 | 1908434740 |
| Title | Belonging |
| Author | Umi Sinha |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Myriad Editions |
| Year published | 2015-09-17 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2016, Short-listed for Waverton Good Read Award 2017 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |