Alice Albinia

One of the largest rivers in the world, the Indus rises in the Tibetan mountains, flows across northern India and then through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god, for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion; today it is the cement of Pakistan's fractious union. This recounts a journey along the Indus, upstream and backwards in time, through two thousand miles of geography from the sea to the source; travelling back historically, from the moment that Pakistan first came into being in Karachi, to the time, millions of years ago in Tibet, when the river itself was born.

The Story of a River

Empires of the Indus

On an unnamed archipelago off the east coast of Britain, they say the impossible has come to pass. Women run the civic institutions. Decide how the islands' money is spent. Till the land. Tend to their families. Teach the men how to be better. They say the woman who made it so is Eva Harcourt Vane, and now that she has died, the gynotopia that was her life's work may be destroyed. But they don't know about Cwen.Cwen has been here longer than any of the buildings and any of the people. The clouds are her children, and the waves are too. Her name has ancient roots, reaching down into the earth beneath her feet. She knows this place has always belonged to women. And she will do anything to protect them.This remarkable novel is a portrait of female power and female potential, both to shelter and to harm. Who are we? Islanders or mainlanders, migrants or landowners, husbands or wives? And how do we share these islands we call home?

Cwen

An Archipelago's Tale

Britannias

a novel

Leela's book

Describes the turbulent history of the Indus River, one of the largest in the world, presenting a historical narrative of the people and civilizations that have lived along its banks in Tibet, India and Pakistan through time. Original.

Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River

With a nod to the Indian masterpiece the Mahabharata, a multithraded, raucous epic about family and faith.

Leela's Book

Leela—alluring, taciturn, haunted—is moving back to Delhi from New York. She knows her return will unsettle many lives. Twenty-five years ago her sister was seduced by Vyasa, a young university lecturer. Now Vyasa, an eminent Sanskrit scholar, is preparing for the unlikely marriage of his son, Ash, to the child of a Hindu nationalist. Compounding Leela’s disruptive presence, Vyasa’s hedonistic daughter Bharati arrives from London, reluctantly leaving her cosmopolitan university life to see Ash married. He, meanwhile, has fallen in love with his brother-in-law to be. Gleefully presiding over the drama is Ganesh—divine, elephant-headed scribe of India’s great epic, the Mahabharata. The family patriarchs may think they have arranged the wedding for their own selfish ends, but according to Ganesh it is he who is directing events—in a bid to save Leela, his beloved heroine, from his devious enemy Vyasa. Turning to fiction after an award-winning travel book, Alice Albinia has written a brilliantly playful and genre-defying first novel. Ambitious and entertaining, Leela’s Book weaves a tale of contemporary Delhi that crosses religious and social boundaries, reaching back into the origins of the Mahabharata itself.

Leela - alluring, taciturn, haunted - is moving back to Delhi after years of exile in New York. She knows her return will disrupt precariously balanced lives. Twenty years ago her sister Meera died, taking a devastating secret with her. Now, as the family gathers for a wedding, Leela must sift truth from fiction. Meanwhile the bride's father plots political conquest, the groom realises that he has fallen in love with his brother-in-law to be, and Ganesh - elephant-headed god and scribe of India's great epic, the Mahabharata - claims both Leela and the novel as his own creation. Brilliantly playful and entertaining, Leela's Book weaves a poignant tale of contemporary life in an ancient city.

Alice Albinia

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