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I am delighted that Small Axes/HopeRoad has chosen to reprint my novel Duppy Conqueror, which tells the story of Marshall Sarjeant’s quest to end an ancient family curse. A twentieth century descendant of a union between an enslaved African woman and her white slave owner, Marshall’s journey begins during the Second World War, taking him from the town of Paradise in rural Jamaica to London, England, where, as a nightclub owner, he becomes involved in the growing pan-African movement.

I’m very much looking forward to the re-publication of The Coffer Dams by my mother, Kamala Markandaya. This novel with an ecological and holistic theme, written more than fifty years ago, seems so topical today.

A Match Made in Heaven is a collection of sixteen new short stories about love and desire by South Asian-heritage British Muslim women authors. The stories explore the love lives of young Muslims in the UK through their own words. Contributions are by approximately equal numbers of established and emerging authors.

I had worked for months to organize two literary festivals. A series of readings were planned, and a couple of films and documentaries introductions. I was working on a memoir, actually a long letter to my daughter about her Liberian grandmother and my childhood years with her. Faced with the growing sense of unease regarding the changes in the world, I set out to share with my daughter the values and norms that had shaped me. It seemed things were going well for me. Then, all of a sudden everything came to a halt. The readings and the festivals were cancelled.

The Tainted is a novel based on a 1920 Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India. I decided to fictionalise the regiment so I could have artistic licence and my story was to be an account of how an Irish regiment serving in the British army in the Raj - I called them the Kildare Rangers.