Something Black in the Lentil Soup
Kavi Naidu is a great poet in the tradition of Wordsworth and Shelley (well, he thinks so, anyway). Pompous, sentimental and hell-bent on finding literary fame and romantic glory, he is catapulted from his humdrum routine into the heady distractions of London.
Urged on by his mother, Kavi sets out to win the prestigious Commonwealth Poetry Prize – but arriving in London, he is beset by people who bewilder him, and over everything looms Seth, India’s most celebrated writer, Kavi’s nemesis for many years. Failing to see the pitfalls all around, he stumbles from muddle to faux pas to disaster.
Suffused with warm, sly humour and a sharp eye for human failings, Something Black in the Lentil Soup is an irreverent portrayal of three parallel cultures – British, Indian and British-Indian – and an entertaining tale of an innocent abroad.
‘A gem of straight-faced comedy.’
Sunday Times
‘Wonderfully comic.’
Guardian
Reshma Ruia
Reshma Ruia is an award-winning author and poet. She has a PhD and Master’s in Creative Writing from Manchester University, as well as a Bachelor and Master’s from the London School of Economics. Her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, was described in the Sunday Times as ‘a gem of straight-faced comedy’. She has published a poetry collection, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, and a short story collection, Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness; her work has appeared in international anthologies and journals, and she has had work commissioned by the BBC. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani – a writers’ collective of British South Asian writers. Born in India and brought up in Rome, her writing explores the preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging.
