Apr
28
6:00pm
Homelands by Chitra Ramaswamy
By The Portobello Bookshop
We’re excited to be joined by Chitra Ramaswamy for the Edinburgh launch of her new book, Homelands: The History of a Friendship. It’s a book about belonging, prejudice and family, told via a decade-long friendship between the author and 97 year old Holocaust survivor, Henry Wuga. Generous and deeply moving, Homelands contrasts two very different life stories to find their similarities – offering a new perspective on nationality, prejudice, community, family, immigration and the desire to belong. She will be in conversation with Peggy Hughes, Executive Director of the National Centre for Writing.
About Homelands:
This book is about two unlikely friends. One born in 1970s Britain to Indian immigrant parents, the other arrived from Nazi Germany in 1939, fleeing persecution.
This book is about common ground. It is a story of migration, anti-Semitism, racism, family, belonging, grief and resilience.
This book is about the past and the present. It is about the state we’re in now and the ways in which we carry our pasts into our futures.
This book is about homelands.
Chitra Ramaswamy is an award-winning journalist and author. Her first book, Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy, won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize. She has contributed essays to Antlers of Water, Nasty Women, The Freedom Papers, The Bi-ble and Message from the Skies. She is a TV critic for the Guardian, the restaurant critic for The Times Scotland, a columnist for the National Trust for Scotland and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio Scotland. She lives in Edinburgh with her partner, two young children and rescue dog.
Peggy Hughes is Executive Director of the National Centre for Writing. She is on the board of publishers at 404ink and Open Book Reading, and is former Chair of Literature Alliance Scotland. She is from Northern Ireland, and before moving to Norwich worked in literature in Scotland, at the University of Dundee, Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust, Scottish Poetry Library and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
hosted by
The Portobello Bookshop
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