Meet Asma, the only child of the Patels. Growing up in the cloistered confines of an Indian Township in the 60’s, hers is a near idyllic childhood. At 5, she’s setting out tea-parties for fairies. At 12, she’s the class superstar, her future all mapped out. ‘My daughter is going to be a doctor!’ – Mr Patel. And then, the placid train to the (so bright) future gets derailed. At 17, she falls in love with Ghaarith. Leather-jacket-wearing, stove-pipe-toting boy from the wrong side of the Colour Divide. When 1976 arrives and the country goes up in flames, Asma finds herself caught between the Fires of Resistance and the duties she is bound to as the daughter of an Indian household.
Praise for:
S.E Bhamjee is a talented writer, her novel will pull you right into the heart of apartheid Indian township suburbia with this important story. Shubnum Khan
A critical time in South Africa’s history serves as the backdrop for a young woman’s coming-of-age. S E Bhamjee’s emotionally textural, almost tactile language transforms this bildungsroman into a dexterous characterization of a second-generation Indian female Muslim experience of trauma and healing during some of Apartheid’s most tumultuous uprisings. Prepare to grow with this protagonist and experience her pains and joys most keenly. Saaleha Idrees Bhamjee
S.E. Bhamjee