Umi will be discussing her highly acclaimed novel, Belonging. An unforgettable epic of love and loss, race and ethnicity, Belonging tells the interwoven story of three generations from the darkest days of the British Raj through to the aftermath of the First World War. It is a novel of secrets that unwind through Lila’s struggle to understand a troubled family history steeped in colonial violence, her grandmother’s letters home from India and the diaries kept by her father, Henry, as he puzzles over the enigma of his birth and his stormy marriage to the mysterious Rebecca.

There will also be a chance for questions and to practice a core writing exercise that she uses to go deeper in her own writing.

About the Hatchery Writers Group