The_Pleasure_Seekers_Tishani_Doshi
2012 Longlist

The Pleasure Seekers

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

It all started in August 1968 when Babo, with curly hair and jhill mill teeth, became the first member of the Patel family to leave Madras and fly on a plane all the way to London to further his education. His father should have known there would be trouble: on the morning of the departure he had his first and only dream, in which strange ghosts threw poison-tipped arrows and all his family was lost… But off Babo went, and now here he is, in a flat off the Finchley Road, untraditionally making love to a cream-skinned girl from Wales, Sian Jones, who he fell head over heels for as soon as he saw the twirl of red ribbon in her hair. Ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom-boom-boom. Theirs is a mixed-up love in a topsy-turvy world, and their two families will never be the same again. Meet the Patel-Joneses: Babo, Sian, Mayuri and Bean, in their little house with orange and black gates next-door to the Punjab Women’s Association. As the twentieth century creaks and croaks its way along – somewhere out there Charles and Diana get hitched; Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her own bodyguards; cable TV arrives in India – these four navigate their way through the uncharted territory of a ‘hybrid’ family: the hustle and bustle of Babo’s relatives, the faraway phone-line crackle of Sian’s, the eternal wisdom and soft bosom of great-grandmother Ba, the perils of first love, lost innocence and old age, and the big question: what do you do with the space your loved ones leave behind? In this tender, lyrical and uplifting debut, Tishani Doshi, a prizewinning poet, effortlessly captures the quirks and calamities of one unusual clan in a story of identity, family, belonging and all-transcending love. (From Publisher)

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Tishani
Doshi

Tishani Doshi is an award-winning poet and dancer of Welsh-Gujarati descent. She was born in Madras, India, in 1975. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers (Bloomsbury, 2010), was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Award, and has been translated into several languages. Her second novel, Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury, 2019), was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize.

Tishani Doshi is an award-winning poet and dancer of Welsh-Gujarati descent. She was born in Madras, India, in 1975. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers (Bloomsbury, 2010), was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Award, and has been translated into several languages. Her second novel, Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury, 2019), was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize.

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NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

In The Pleasure Seekers, Tishani Doshi has produced a novel about growing up bi-racial that side-steps all the cliches about that condition. Set in Wales, London, Madras and Gujarat, this novel is at once cosmopolitan and intimate, fantastical and vividly real. It’s an old-fashioned love – against-the-odds story, and it makes for a wonderful debut.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
India
Original Language
English
Author
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing

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