Death, heartbreak and the inability to feel completely at home on either continent follow mixed-race couple, Frank and Maree from Britain to India and back.
1896, Bombay. As a prequel to A Patient Obsession, The Fuchsia Sari tells the backstory to Patience's family heritage.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Mangal (Frank) grows up an orphan in a Bombay wadi. His mathematical prowess enables him to gain a scholarship to study at Manchester University, England where he encounters prejudice, friendship and eventually love.
Maree, a Lancashire lass, working as a milliner's apprentice, one of five daughters, wishes to be a princess. After a chance meeting with Frank and their ensuing relationship she follows him and sets sail to India on her own, away from everything she knew. Once there, they try to make a life for themselves but as a mixed-race couple they are accepted by neither Indian society nor the colonial British.
Death, heartbreak and the inability to feel completely at home on either continent follow the couple.
Can they overcome racism, overt or hidden, and lead happy fulfilled lives?
Coming from Anglo-Indian ancestry Meryl Dunton-Rose explores themes of race and dislocation in her new novel The Fuchsia Sari. As a teacher and educator who has lived across many continents and countries the search for a sense of belonging has always been an integral part of her life. Family history has again played a scaffolding role, as in A Patient Obsession, her first novel. Her grandparents' lives in both India and England have been a source of curiosity for many years and their story has inspired her writing even while wishing she had paid more interest and asked more questions when young. The Fuchsia Sari is a recreation of her grandparents' lives as they may or may not have lived them.
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