Shona Patel

Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel is very loosely based on her parents' story. She had tried to write a non-fiction version first so she added stories that she heard and turned it into historical fiction. It took place before India's independence from Great Britian and many of the aspects of colonalism are in the story.

Layla was born under an unlucky star, and because of that was unlikely to marry. But on April 7, 1943, she married Manik Deb, who had an English Education and who was betrothed to marry another woman. Loosing both parents at very young age, she was ultimately raised by her grandfather, Dadamoshai, a promenient man in the area who championed English for the nationa language of India since India had many languaage and dialects and people could not talk to each other. He thought it was the most practical language for his country. Layla admired him tremendously and decided to follow in his footsteps and become an English teacher. Unfortunately, this ambition did not bear out when India became independent.

Manik came to Dadamoshair regularly for discussions and slowly Layla began to desire Mamk but she did not encourage him, he was already engaged. But Manik is breaks the path laid out for him as a civil servant and accepts a postion at the Assam Tea Plantation. He is disowned by his family and the future inlaws break the engagement. After the required three years of being single, he rushes to Layla and quickly marries. That began Layla's coming of age and finding her own self in the wild area of the plantation that was inhabited by headhunters. We go with Layla and experiene the odd life of living on the tea plantarion and the many disasters and triumps that break open.… (mais)

I really enjoyed the middle of this book best - it started out slow, but got better, and then towards the end, it felt like the author was more setting up the characters for another chapter than leading towards a conclusion. And yes, when I checked the author's page, it turns out this book was written as a prequel to another book. Still, I found the story of nineteenth-century India and Bengal interesting and the characters stood out. I was frustrated by a couple of the storylines, especially Estelle, who appears primarily in the middle of the book then disappears until the very end. Overall, an interesting book with valuable insight into colonial India.… (mais)