Genie and Paul - Softcover

Soobramanien, Natasha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908434171 ISBN 13: 9781908434173

Publisher: Myriad Editions, 2008

Synopsis

Genie and Paul is an utterly original love story: the story of a sister’s love for a lost brother, and the story of his love for an island that has never really existed. One morning in May 2003, on the cyclone-ravaged island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean, the body of a man washes up on the beach. Six weeks previously, the night Tropical Cyclone Kalunde first gathered force, destruction of another kind hit twenty-six-year-old Genie Lallan and her life in London: after a night out with her brother she wakes up in hospital to discover that he’s disappeared. Where has Paul gone and why did he abandon her at the club where she collapsed? Genie’s search for him leads her to Rodrigues, sister island to Mauritius – their island of origin, and for Paul, the only place he has ever felt at home. Will Genie track Paul down? And what will she find if she does? The debut novel of Natasha Soobramanien.

About this title

About the Author

Natasha Soobramanien was born and grew up in London, but also lived for a time in both Hong Kong and Hastings. She currently lives in London. She studied English at the University of Hull and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She stayed on after her MA to do a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, for which she submitted an early draft of Genie and Paul (Myriad, 2012), a retelling (or ‘cannibalistic translation’) of the French eighteenth-century classic Paul et Virginie by Bernardin de Saint Pierre. While at UEA, Soobramanien met fellow writer Luke Williams, to whose debut novel The Echo Chamber she contributed two chapters. Her contribution was well-received: the Guardian described it as ‘quirky, aggressive, funny, demotic… a rollicking read’, while the New York Times praised its ‘ebullience and erotic fizz’, and the Sunday Times named both Soobramanien and Williams ‘talented writers to watch’. The novel went on to win the 2011 Saltire Award for Best First Book. The two writers are now collaborating on a novel, Diego Garcia, which tells the history of the island of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, from its origins in myth to its present status as a British colony, US military base and appropriated homeland of the Chagossian Islanders.

Reviews

Best Fiction – Foyles, 2012 Books of the Year – Guardian, 2012 First Book Award – Anobii, 2012 Shortlisted – Amazon Rising Stars, 2012

Edition details

• Publisher: Myriad Editions
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908434171
• ISBN 13: 9781908434173
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240