Anita and Me by Meera Syal
Special edition of this bestselling classic, to tie in with the release of a major new film of Anita and Me It’s 1972. Meena is nine years old and lives in the village of Tollington, ‘the jewel of the Black Country’. She is the daughter of Indian parents who have come to England to give her a better life. As one of the few Punjabi inhabitants of her village, her daily struggle for independence is different from most. She wants fishfingers and chips, not chapati and dhal; she wants an English Christmas, not the usual interminable Punjabi festivities – but more than anything, she wants to roam the backyards of working-class Tollington with feisty Anita Rutter and her gang. Blonde, cool, aloof, outrageous and sassy, Anita is everything Meena thinks she wants to be. Meena wheedles her way into Anita’s life, but the arrival of a baby brother, teenage hormones, impending entrance exams for the posh grammar school and a motorcycling rebel without a future, threaten to turn Anita’s salad days sour. Anita and Me paints a comic, poignant, compassionate and colourful portrait of village life in the era of flares, power cuts, glam rock, decimalisation and Ted Heath. It is a unique vision of a British childhood in the Seventies, a childhood caught between two cultures, each on the brink of change.‘Tom Sawyer meets Cider With Rosie en route to India via WolverhamptonA wonderful book – treat yourself.’ Ben Elton
‘Funny, moving and packed full of wonderful surprises.’ Esther Freud
‘This is a funny, sad book. It made me long to be a kid again, yet grateful I’d grown up.’ Jo Brand
‘Anita and Me is full of pleasure. Syal is as skilful at rendering the saucy, ballsy backchat of the Tollington women as she is at describing Meena’s “uncles and aunties”, her parents’ Indian friends. The book is expertly structured and engagingly written, illuminated throughout by Meena’s ironical irreverance and robustness of spirit. I can give it no higher recommendation.’ Laura Tennant, Guardian
Meera Syal is a writer, actress, playwright, comic and novelist. She wrote the screenplays for the films Bhaji on the Beach and the multi-award-winning My Sister Wife. Her TV work includes 3 BBC hit series, The Real McCoy, The Kumars at No 42 and Goodness Gracious Me. She scripted the musical Bombay Dreams, which opened this summer in London. Anita and Me, her first novel, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Her second novel, Life Isn’t All Ha-Ha, Hee-Hee, was published in 1999.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780007143016 |
| ISBN 10 | 000714301X |
| Title | Anita and Me |
| Author | Meera Syal |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year published | 2002-11-04 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |