Bone China - Couverture souple

Following her critically acclaimed debut novel, Mosquito, Roma Tearne returns with a lyrical family story that crosses continents and generations to explore how our country of origin leaves an indelible mark on our present and our future.

Grace de Silva, a mother of five, struggles to hold her family and her crumbling marriage together as civil unrest stirs in Sri Lanka. Her husband is charming but shiftless, and her children are poised to pursue their dreams for the future. Jacob, her eldest, wants to leave home for England, while Frieda longs to remain in her homeland. Thornton, Grace’s favourite son, dreams of becoming a poet; his sister Alicia wants to be a concert pianist. But when Grace’s youngest son, Christopher, becomes embroiled in the political tensions tearing apart the country, this once happy family is suddenly fractured. As four of the siblings make their way to London, they become caught in a cultural clash between East and West, and life as they’ve known it changes forever.

ROMA TEARNE was born in Sri Lanka. An artist as well as a writer, she completed her MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art and was Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. She was recently awarded a fellowship in the visual arts by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain. Mosquito has been shortlisted for Britain’s prestigious Costa First Novel Award (formerly the Whitbread Award). Roma Tearne lives in Oxford, England.