![]() ![]() Although Neema had heard stories told by her grandmothers of their lives in India and East Africa, on beginning the novel she realised how little she truly knew of her own parents’ upbringings. ![]() ![]() Her own family are East African Asian her grandparents left India during World War Two and settled in Kenya and Tanzania. The book is a product of the author’s own extensive research but also draws upon the lives and experiences of her extended family which she has uncovered through numerous conversations with them. Kololo Hill will be published this month and is the story of one family who experienced just this. Without the obstacle of editing on-the-go, she felt liberated to convey the story she was so motivated to share: that of “an overlooked part of British history” – how it might have felt for the Ugandan Asians who were forcibly expelled from their country by Idi Amin in 1972. As a debut novelist, what gave Neema Shah the confidence to begin was the exercise of “freewriting” - essentially getting everything down on paper without pausing to reflect on what was being recorded. Image credit Alexander James.When writing, sometimes the hardest thing is to know where to start. ![]()
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