A vivid collection of stories based on the author's years an an adult education worker, mainly among women from India and Pakistan. The society in which they find themselves is alien, often hostile. Yet as they discover more about each other friendships develop across the boundaries of language and culture.

The women in these stories become as real as close friends. Frail, elderly Mrs G.K. Ramgharia as she learns to write . Farida who has to hide her shame that her husband is violent . Premila caught between her loyalty to her brothers and her desire to support her daughter in arranging her own marriage . Shanaz, who seems so warm and open, yet has areas of privacy she will not allow anyone to breach ... Each story is different, each gives an entrée to daily lives their English neighbours hardly see. It is impossible to read this book and come away with stereotypes.

'She has an ability to fully create a world and draw the reader down into it so that one can almost feel and even smell it, it is so close. And what she says is of importance, of value, to our society and to our time.' Anita Desai, novelist

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Price: £6.99
ISBN: 9 780958 218603
1st published by The Women's Press. This edition by Addenda, New Zealand
To order this title please email sales@longstonebooks.co.uk

Distributed in the UK by www.centralbooks.com and in New Zealand by www.addenda.co.nz

Marion Molteno’s short stories are also published in the following collections:

• 'The uses of Literacy' in Singing in tune with time, ed. Elizabeth Cairns, Virago, 1993
• 'The bracelets' in Well Sorted, Serpents Tail, 1995
  (prize winner in London short story competition)
  

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