Two book deal with Harper Collins!

Finding Rose blooms for HarperFiction editor, says The Bookseller

HarperFiction editor Charlotte Brabbin has sealed world English-language rights to British-Indian author Amita Murray’s début Finding Rose.

A two-book deal was struck with Samar Hammam at Rocking Chair Books Literary Agency, with rights also sold in Germany after a four-way auction.

Brabbin said: “The clever balance of humour and emotional suspense in Finding Rose makes it unique.”

The title is slated for early 2019.

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/finding-rose-blooms-harperfiction-editor-653266

Marmite and Mango Chutney wins SI Leeds Literary Award

The SI Leeds Literary Award ceremony at Ilkley Literature Festival on Oct 12, 2016. Sponsored by the wonderful people at SI Leeds International, Peepal Tree and the Ilkley Literature Festival.

This short story collection was partly written when I was a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence at University College London in 2015.

The entire experience of meeting the short list, reading with them, and sharing the award with the other short listed candidates and winners was thrilling and unforgettable!

After the Delhi Rain, in SAND literary magazine, Berlin

My short story After the Delhi Rain, was published recently in SAND, Berlin. Thanks to the wonderful editor Florian Duijsens for all his hard work.

After the Delhi Rain (excerpt)

Michelle was leaving Delhi in three days, and there was nothing he could do about it. So he sat in the Metro like this was an ordinary day, in a week of ordinary days. He stared blankly at the slum he passed everyday, a slum in a city of ordinary slums, people squatting outside it in the aftermath of the monsoon rain, boys playing cricket in the drip-drip mud, mounds of earth and shit dotted with colourful debris. It was a brown-grey shanty town, little dwellings with four walls and a canopy roof, sometimes not even that, just thin fabric strung up for privacy from people like him, carelessly riding past in the Metro, reading the news on their iPhones, playing word games till their eyes hurt, holding thumb conversations, multiple ones simultaneously.

Just by the side of the railway tracks, goats and skinny dogs and happy chickens, boys and girls swatting flies. A boy was standing by a hill of banana peel, trousers halfway down his buttocks, about to relieve himself, but talking on his phone at the same time. A cart without a donkey. A cow with empty teats. A silver Santro parked in the middle of it all. 

Read the rest in SAND http://www.sandjournal.com/issue/13

The Root Ball, on the Hawaii Pacific Review

(This story was written during a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence grant at University College London, in 2015, in which I collaborated with UCL's human geographers on various writing and artistic projects.)

The hole is getting bigger. The root ball of the cabbage tree sits in a kink in the corner of the compound, waiting to be transplanted. But her husband is digging away, and her mother is watching, hands on hips, looking grim. Again and again the spade splices the loam. Again and again the soil spatters on the expanding mound of leftovers. Sweat streams down Ahiri’s face, and there are pools developing around her hip bones.

“I guess it’s my turn,” she says.

“I can finish it,” Jesse says.

“I’ll do it,” she says firmly. “Does it have to be bigger?”

“Twice the size of the root ball,” her mother says.

It takes another fifteen minutes of digging before her mother is satisfied.

“There,” says Ahiri, kneading her lower back. “Surely it’s done now.”

Her mother gently unfolds the wet tarp that is protecting the taproot. She brushes off the hummus that is clinging to the new roots. Then she glances over at Jesse. Jesse lifts the tree, newly dug out from outside the compound, pruned last year in preparation for this move. He lugs it over and places it at the edge of the hole, but whatever he is planning to do with it is cut short as the tree crashes in. Her mother cries out. “The new roots!”

It’s okay, Mum, it’s just a tree, Ahiri wants to say, but her mother is delicate around her plants, minding their feelings and tending their wounds, skills she has never developed for her daughter. Ahiri and Jesse squat, trying to make it right. The leaves are long and prickly, the bark tough and leathery like cork. It is impossible to reach down and right the tree, without getting stung in the face. They try to nudge the tree into the centre. When Ahiri’s mother is satisfied, she starts to throw the earth back into the hole. Ahiri and Jesse join in, cushioning, padding, kneading out the air pockets, till the hole is filled. Her mother places mulch all around the tree, and then irrigates it again.

Read the rest on the Hawaii Pacific Review.

Five Questions I Asked Santa

It's that time of the year again...

First published in The London Word http://www.thelondonword.com/2012/12/five-questions-i-asked-santa/

Christmas is around the corner and my anxiety is at its peak. I’ve promised – yet again – to spend Christmas with the family. It’ll be super-duper to see them. Really, it will. For a few days, I won’t have to do any cooking or cleaning. I will shlep around in my PJs. I will eat as much as I want, and add a dollop or two of double cream to everything. (If everyone else is doing it, the calories cancel each other out.) 

Is it heaven on earth? It might be – if it weren’t for all the talking. The one-on-one questions from relatives – How’s that book coming along? Have you got a proper job yet? Does it pay? – I can just about handle. From years of experience, I’ve realized that smiling, nodding and praising said relative’s Labradoodle, Christmas tofurky, exfoliated chin, and general outlook on life will win me points and get the attention away from me.

No, it’s the general barrage of noise that I’m scared of. The onslaught, an incessant nattering, that starts at 5.30am on Christmas Eve and then continues all day and well into and beyond Boxing Day. I just know that Auntie B will tell that ginseng story again that will include a series of racial slurs cunningly disguised as worldly wisdom. Cousin J will show me his boils. And Uncle T will make me a spread-sheet on all the ways I’m going wrong in my life. And they will do it all at the same time. All in the same ear.

So, when I bumped into Santa the other day in TGI Friday, a little red faced and frost-bitten from all his toy-shop appearances and global warming respectively, I asked him – Why do I put myself through this every year?

Me: Santa, why must I shop till I drop at Christmas?

Santa (with a saucy smile): Because it is the sexy thing to do! Do you know my favourite author, my dear? It is Sophia Kinsella! The woman has made living on a permanent over-draft – and unpaid bills and mounting credit card debt – sexy! If before the Shopaholic series you felt guilty and a little dirty to do all that shopping, now you feel helplessly feminine, charmingly kooky and flighty – but in an endearing way. [he leans closer and whispers...] Let me tell you a little secret. You’ve asked your mum to tell all the relatives not to buy you presents, because you’re broke (yes, again) and you can’t afford to reciprocate, haven't you? But, you know, everyone will get you a present. They will say that it doesn’t matter that you didn’t get them anything, but it will! If I were you, cupcake, I’d pop in at Lush on the way out and get everyone some soap. It’s good for the economy.

Me: Is it good for the economy?

Santa (taking a few sips of his appletini): Of course! We have to maintain the status quo! Imagine for a minute that Mr. Bank Manager didn’t earn five hundred thousand pounds this year, and you, doll – a writer, did you say? (Spiffing! Really, top notch! Here, have a free mince pie, you look a little hungry.) Where was I? If Mr. Bank Manager didn’t live in a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park, where would we all be? He has to keep on earning, he has to have a penthouse in New York and a holiday house in the Algave. The economy has taken a beating lately, and the government wants us to spend so we can get back on track! So we can get back to being in denial. It is natural to be in denial. Clarity would only bring us down! So, spend, spend, spend! 

Me: Err, right. Okay, so why must I eat till I pop?

Santa: It beats me how you’re supposed to know when to stop! Once you start with the turkey and the roast potatoes, move on through the extra stuffing to the pudding and the cream, why, you have to come back to the potatoes!

Me: Why must I put cucumber in my wine and egg in my nog?

Santa (now a little woozy): Perfection is boring, my little lollipop. Excess, excess! Celebrate excess! 

Me: Gotcha. Then, why must I drink till I – Oh, never mind, I already know the answer to that one…

More William Morris

I want all my clothes to be William Morris prints.

Explore the collections at William Morris Gallery, and events like Social Fabric: African Textiles Today.

Visit them at http://www.wmgallery.org.uk/

Staying Power Black British Experience at the V and A

by Charlie Phillips

The Black British Experience exhibition at the Victoria and Albert brings home the exceptional, yet completely everyday, place of black beauty and experience in Britain. A history that is often misplaced in British life. The exhibition is a much-too-fleeting glimpse of photographs from the 1950s to the 1990s, all to do with aspects of black British experience. Hairstyles are just part of the equation. The exhibition shines a light on British Caribbean homes, black jewellery, street life, and celebrations. It takes its name and inspiration from Peter Fryer's 1984 book Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain.

Read full article at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amita-murray/african-beauty_b_6774526.html


Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s
Feb 16-May 24 2015
Victoria and Albert

The Black British Experience, at the V and A

From Series Black Beauty Pageants, by Raphael Albert, 1960-79

Hairstyles of Nigerian women, by JD Okhai Ojeikere

Diary of a Victorian Dandy, by Yinka Shonibare, 1998

Westbourne Park Tube Station, Charlie Philips, 1967

Call me stupid, but it took a passionate discussion of the relevance and place of hair and hairstyles as cultural markers from my black students, to bring it home to me just how complicated African hairstyles are. Actually, I still don't completely get it. But my lovely students explained to me and an open-mouthed, very diverse classroom, that if they let their hair grow out, it would simply grow out and up. That it takes taming, straightening, weaves, braiding, hair extensions, and many, many hours to create the beautiful, complex confections that they wear to class. It reminded me, too, of how normative ideals of white beauty continue to impact people of non-white heritage - the hair straightening, the face bleaching, the tucking in, epilating, waxing, narrowing, tweezing, anorexia, liposuctioning, lip-pulling in, that happen behind the scenes to conform to mainstream, capitalism-prescribed aesthetic and performative norms.

The Black British Experience exhibition at the V and A brings home the exceptional, yet completely everyday, place of black beauty and experience in Britain. A history that is often missed, misplaced, displaced, ignored, misunderstood, or simply turned a blind eye to in British life. 

The Road to Shimla

“The first time you saw me, you handed me a glass of bubbly and punched me in the face,” Alice says. She turns to study her husband – if he is still her husband.

Jacob pauses in the act of doing nothing at all. “Nostalgia? You? Shocking,” he says. “And anyway, I did not punch you in the face. You took one sip and only bloody choked on it. I was trying to give you a neighbourly thump.”

“More like a neighbourly hump, if I’d only known,” Alice says virtuously.

Jacob reaches out a hand to her, then stops, takes out his phone and starts doing heaven knows what on it. She clenches the steering wheel, and stares out at Kalka, the last town in the plains before the road climbs up to the Himalayas. Life presses in hungrily on both sides of the car. The rain has formed gullies, and there is garbage swimming its way down – onion peel, soggy cabbage, Band-aid, a plastic bag of Amul Milk, a half-dead lizard, hair scrunchies, a child’s pacifier, known locally and succinctly as a “nipple,” a dirty sock, assorted life debris. continued...

The Road to Shimla was published by Inkspill magazine in 2011. Read it here http://issuu.com/sophieplayle/docs/inkspill_magazine_issue_5

The Guest Editor Eleanor Perry says, "The Road to Shimla is a delicately-crafted snapshot of cultural displacement, capturing by turns both the caustic and the tender moments in the disintegration of a marriage."

Marmite and Mango Chutney

Auntie’s stroke didn’t seem to have any lasting effect, except for a slight droop in her left cheek and the tendency to talk in aphorisms.

“Such is life,” she would say. She would puff out her cheeks like a hoary toad fighting against the march of cynicism. “People only look out for themselves. It has to be said.” In her more positive moments, her favourite was, “You can only grow old if your heart ages.” And then there was the cryptic and all-encompassing, “Young people.”

The last was a flexible one, and could be adapted to many situations. “Black people,” or, “Chinese men,” or “Accountants,” or “Those homeless,” were all versions she used regularly. It was difficult to know where her sayings came from. If they were a product of experience, or if they defied encounters and conversations, and emerged triumphant, despite all evidence to the contrary.

When Auntie’s daughter, my cousin Veronica, announced that she was going to marry Gary, a mixed-race, half-black, half-white “mongrel” – as Auntie labelled him – the after-effects of the stroke became more pronounced than ever.

“The West is full of divorce,” Auntie said, her face drooping to one side, elongating the speck of Marmite that lingered on her cheek after lunch. Marmite and Amed’s Mango Chutney were Auntie’s two favourite foods in the world, and everyday at lunch, she ate two slices of bread, each with a layer first of Marmite, then mango chutney, the kind with bits of sweetened, gloopy mango in it. “He will leave you within two years,” she continued, as if she had performed a risk analysis of the time it would take for a mixed-race accountant to leave a second-generation part-time blogger. “And then where will you be?” As she asked the question, she combed her hair with a thin comb, over and over, slowly, rhythmically, like she was stroking a cat, stopping only to pull out coils of oily hair from the comb and rolling them into a tight and ever-expanding ball that she would hand over to whoever had the bad luck to be sitting next to her when she was done combing.

Read the short story here http://writingdisorder.com/amita-murray/ 

The MF Husain exhibition at the Victoria and Albert

Maqbool Fida Husain, mourned in India as a “national loss” after his death in 2011, is supposed to have died in “self-imposed exile” in London – as the media like to put it. Yet, it is ridiculous to call it “self-imposed” exile. He lived outside of India because back in the country where he was born and where he grew up, he lived in fear of his life. He received regular death threats for offending religious feelings, for making paintings with themes from Hindu religion that were apparently profane because they depicted nudity and eroticism.

Read full article here
See more blog posts to do with art and books here

MF Husain at the V and A, a preview

Exhibition at the V and A, of 8 triptychs by MF Husain. For more pictures, go here http://amitamurray.com/ The exhibition goes on till July 27, 2014. Free entry.

Article coming soon!

Buy my novels here!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amita-Murray/e/B00I3Z465O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

ROMANTIC COMEDY

Confessions of a Reluctant Embalmer
Anna Patel styles dead people. (And they probably know that they're dead.)

Trapped between her histrionic family, and her own troublesome desires, she tells people the truth on a strictly need-to-know basis. Now all she needs to do to get away from it all is marry her persistent boyfriend - and keep it all together till the wedding. It should be dead easy.

But then, during a memorial service held at her parents' (Ruth Worthing and Govind Patel) funeral home, a dead cat appears in a casket. There's a Pet Slasher on the loose, the Patel family’s livelihood is hanging by a thread, and on top of it all, their chief embalmer keeps telling her she's his soul-mate.

Her heart and happiness at stake, Anna must confront who she is, and ask herself if trying to be normal and dependable is all it is cracked up to be.

"Randy, Funny, Fascinating" - Publishers Weekly

"This book is fantastic. The family are feisty, flirty and fun." - A Book and Tea

If you like Six Feet Under, The Royal Tennenbaums, and all kinds of rom-com, then check out this book!

VICTORIAN MYSTERY

The Pre-Raphaelite Seamstress
It is the 1860s, and Rachel Faraday is trying to follow in the footsteps of the Pre-Raphaelite artists. Struggling to make a living, in a world that looks down on female traders, she paints her fabrics in the colours and styles of the artists and sells them to wealthy women who daydream about clasping the men of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood between their thighs. One night, she meets a man, who, after the coldness of her cottage and the loneliness of her existence, shows her the possibility of a different life. The next day, he is arrested on suspicion of cold-blooded murder. As Rachel sets out to prove his innocence, she realizes that she must come to terms not only with the evidence in front of her, the vagaries of her trade, the hot-blooded attentions of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but her own erotic longings and the secrets of her past.

Are you a good writer or a good storyteller?

Read my latest blog post on amitamurray.com

How to act like a Londoner!

Banksy, of course

Get pissed at the funeral of a close relative, tie your pants around your head and dance in Trafalgar Square in the middle of the night, holding a can of Australian beer in your hand. Sing God Save the Queen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amita-murray/the-definitive-guide-to-acting-like-a-londoner_b_4705714.html

Lovely reviews!

About The Pre-Raphaelite Seamstress

A Woman's Wisdom
http://awomanswisdom.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/the-pre-raphaelite-seamstress-by-amita-murray/

"There are some particularly descriptive passages in the book which are superbly written and give a real pull to the senses as they transported me straight back to the streets of Victorian England."

Fresh Pot of Tea
http://alisondeluca.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/review-of-pre-raphaelite-seamstress.html

"Part romance, part cozy mystery, The Pre-Raphaelite Seamstress by Amita Murray was a thoroughly enjoyable read. The author has done a great deal of research for the book, and this showed in a number of colorful details as well as rich settings and backgrounds, glowing with life."

Rani Shergill
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R115A28EIWL6AY
"This is a wonderful, rich and colourful book with vivid scenes describing life in Victorian London!"
 

The Pre-Raphaelite Seamstress

The Pre-Raphaelite Seamstress is available on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amita-Murray/e/B00I3Z465O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1391175745&sr=8-1
Buy here and read an excerpt 

"The day I met Harry Twyfold, I was mistaken for a whore. And a team of horses on the stage coach to Bath nearly killed me. It was not the first time a man looked me up and down and offered me a few pennies to bend over and lift my skirts, and it wouldn’t be the last. A seamstress has no virtue to lose. And I have long ago given up the fight to explain myself."

Confessions of a Reluctant Embalmer on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amita-Murray/e/B00I3Z465O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1391175745&sr=8-1 - Buy it here, and read an excerpt

Anna is engaged to one man, another keeps telling her she's his soul-mate, and all these dead bodies keep popping up....

Confessions of a Reluctant Embalmer book cover

Stephanie Tkach has done a brilliant job with this cover. Tell me what you think! Either as a comment here, or on @AmitaMurray. I'd love to know.


You would like this novel if you like comedy, rom-com, dysfunctional family humour, multi-cultural families.


Read the blurb...

Anna Patel styles dead people.
(But they don't know that they're dead....Just kidding. They probably know...)

Trapped between her histrionic family, and her own troublesome desires, she tells people the truth on a strictly need-to-know basis. Now all she needs to do to get away from it all is marry her persistent boyfriend - and keep it all together till the wedding. Easy, right?

During a memorial service in her parents' (Ruth Worthing and Govind Patel) funeral home, a dead cat appears in a casket. There's a Pet Slasher on the loose, the Patel family’s livelihood is hanging by a thread, and on top of it all, their chief embalmer keeps telling her that she's his soul-mate. With her heart and happiness at stake, Anna must confront who she is, and ask herself if trying to be normal and dependable is all it's cracked up to be.

Publishers Weekly says, "A randy and light tone infuses this funny novel about a family who run a funeral home in present day London. The author intersperses fascinating tales about the family’s clients, rendered with matter of fact good humour, as the family dramas spiral out of control. The book is a perfectly charming blend of macabre detail and the social dynamics of a multi-cultural family in the U.K., without ever resorting to cliché, except to comic effect."

Confessions of a Reluctant Embalmer

My first novel Confessions of a Reluctant Embalmer is coming out on Kindle Publishing/Amazon very, very soon. The book is a rom-com set in a funeral home, so think Six Feet Under meets Simon Doonan and they go out to lunch with As Good As it Gets or Forgetting Sarah Marshall - I can't decide, something romantic and funny.

Read the blurb...

Anna Patel styles dead people.
(But they don't know that they're dead....Just kidding. They probably know...)

Trapped between her histrionic family, and her own troublesome desires, she tells people the truth on a strictly need-to-know basis. Now all she needs to do to get away from it all is marry her persistent boyfriend - and keep it all together till the wedding. Easy, right?

During a memorial service in her family's funeral home, a dead cat appears in a casket. There's a Pet Slasher on the loose, the Patel family’s livelihood is hanging by a thread, and on top of it all, their chief embalmer keeps telling her that she's his soul-mate. With her heart and happiness at stake, Anna must confront who she is, and ask herself if trying to be normal and dependable is all it's cracked up to be.

Publishers Weekly says, "A randy and light tone infuses this funny novel about a family who run a funeral home in present day London. The author intersperses fascinating tales about the family’s clients, rendered with matter of fact good humour, as the family dramas spiral out of control. The book is a perfectly charming blend of macabre detail and the social dynamics of a multi-cultural family in the U.K., without ever resorting to cliché, except to comic effect."

Stephanie Tkach is working on a book cover, and I can't wait to share it with you. 
The book will be available as an e-edition and paperback.