Leela's Book

Born in 1976, Alice Albinia read English Literature at Cambridge, and South Asian History at SOAS. In between, she worked for two years in Delhi as a journalist and editor. Her previous book, Empires of the Indus, won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Authors' Club Dolman Travel Award and the Jerwood/Royal Society of Literature Prize.

"A bold and delightful novel, executed with energy and flair... Leela's Book is as much a meditation on tensions between brothers and sisters, or between parents and their children, as it is a rumination on the nature of storytelling. For a novel so thick in plot, and so lush with details of Indian life, it reads effortlessly. The result is magnificent" -- Angel Gurria-Quintana Financial Times "Leela's Book is a stimulating novel in which Albinia skilfully manages an intricate plot and an enormous, diverse cast of characters. Her immense historical acumen and sophisticated sense of culture have enabled her to craft a powerful tale" Guardian "This is steeped in the tradition of the Indian epic, yet modern and vastly entertaining" -- Kate Saunders The Times "Bold, playful, smart and lively" Time Out "An epic, polyphonic juggernaut of a novel. Ambitious, skilfully plotted, and full of wonderful surprises. I was hooked from the very first page" -- Tahmima Anam, author of A Golden Age