Brixton Beach - Hardcover

Roma Tearne fled Sri Lanka at the age of ten, travelling to Britain where she has spent most of her life. She gained her Master's degree at the Ruskin Shool of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, 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. She lives and works in Oxford.

'Prose so lush it appeals to every sense, the pages are suffused with the scents and tastes, ring with the sounds of Sri Lanka and South London... Roma Tearne is an exquisite writer and captivating storyteller, such that the reader is endlessly torn between the desire to linger and the urge to turn the page to see where she will take us next.' Aminatta Forna Praise for Mosquito: '"Mosquito" plays with sensuous mixes of human bestiality and natural beauty!It is in this continuing agency of remembered love -- presented as the colours, sounds and smells of art, in dialogue with beauty and horror -- that the uplifting politics of this fine novel lies.' Independent 'Heart-rending!Readers of this powerful novel cannot fail to be moved!but they will also realise that, as well as being a rebuke to indifference, the book is also about hope and survival.' Christopher Ondaatje, Spectator '"Mosquito" lyrically captures a country drenched in both incomparable beauty and the stink of hatred.' Guardian 'Tearne brings her skills as a painter to her writing, creating some extraordinarily lovely portraits of Sri Lankan land and seascapes, a stunning backdrop to the changing horrors of the country's 20-year civil war. Anyone who has visited, or has a passing interest in Sri Lanka, should read this beautiful novel.' Sunday Telegraph '"Mosquito" is a complex, ambitious book from a writer with a real talent for language. We will be hearing a great deal about Ms. Tearne in the future.' Lauren B. Davis, author of 'The Stubborn Season' and 'The Radiant City' 'There are some beautiful passages in "Mosquito"!These flashes of true beauty, along with an impressively sustained forward drive, are enough to make "Mosquito" an engaging and thought-provoking novel.' Times Literary Supplement 'Anyone who has a passing interest in Sri Lanka should read this beautiful novel.' Sunday Telegraph