£8.00
£0
Part of
Birnam Book Festival
Homelands tells the story of Chitra Ramaswamy's decade-long friendship with Holocaust survivor, Henry Wuga.
Henry arrived in the UK on the Kindertransport aged 15, followed a few months later by his future wife, Ingrid; they spent the rest of their lives in Glasgow, setting up the city's biggest Jewish catering company and sharing their stories of flight, internment and survival. Chitra was born in London in the ‘70s, the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Despite their very different stories, Henry and Chitra found a surprising amount in common: both have complex relationships to the UK and the 'home country' both share a desire to belong, while being true to their cultural identities; both have a family history involving loss, resilience, immigration and prejudice; both have a strong emotional connection to food, family and community. Their two stories–and their shared one–are woven together beautifullyby Chitra, in this account of a very unique friendship, and of modern Britain.
Chitra Ramaswamy is an award-winning journalist and author. Her first book,Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy, won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize. She hascontributed essays to Antlers of Water, Nasty Women, The Freedom Papers, The Bi-ble and Message fromthe Skies. She is a TV critic for The Guardian, the restaurant critic for The Times Scotland, a columnist for the National Trust for Scotland, and she broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio Scotland. Jane Archer is a writer based in Birnam who has won awards for her short stories. She isAssociate Artist(Writer) with Horsecross Arts & Mindspace, also working on the Autumn Voices Third Age PioneersProject.