Ira makes her debut with Love The Dark Days

Ira Math­ur, an In­di­an-born Trinida­di­an award-win­ning mul­ti­me­dia jour­nal­ist, launched her book–Love the Dark Days at the Nehru Cen­tre in Lon­don on Wednes­day. The book is pub­lished by Peepal Tree Press.

In 2021 Math­ur was longlist­ed for the Bath Nov­el Award for her un­pub­lished nov­el Touch­ing Dr Si­mone. In 2019 Math­ur was longlist­ed for the John­son and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writ­ers Prize. In 2018, she was short­list­ed for the Brid­port Short Sto­ry Prize, the Lo­ri­an Hem­ming­way (short sto­ry) and Small Axe Lit­er­ary Com­pe­ti­tion. She is the Trinidad Guardian’s longest-run­ning colum­nist and has free­lanced for The Guardian (UK) and the BBC. Math­ur has de­grees in Lit­er­a­ture, Law and Jour­nal­ism, and gained diplo­mas in cre­ative writ­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of East An­glia/Guardian.

Frank, fear­less and mul­ti-lay­ered

This frank, fear­less and mul­ti-lay­ered de­but cen­tres on a priv­i­leged but dys­func­tion­al In­di­an fam­i­ly, with themes of em­pire, mi­gra­tion, race, and gen­der. The Vic­to­ri­an In­dia ele­phant in the room in Math­ur’s silk-swathed mem­oir Love The Dark Days is in chains. By the time ca­lyp­so re­places the Raj in post-colo­nial Trinidad, the chains are off three gen­er­a­tions of daugh­ters and moth­ers in a fam­i­ly in their New World ex­ile. But they are still stuck in place and en­dur­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty and threats, seen and un­seen. The book is about ac­crued in­ter­gen­er­a­tional dam­age be­tween moth­ers and daugh­ters in post-colo­nial worlds.

The sto­ry of the life of Pop­pet, whose priv­i­leged fam­i­ly has col­lud­ed with the bru­tal­i­ty of the British Rule in In­dia, lives with her grand­moth­er Bur­ri­mum­my, who feels a rag­ing loss at the fad­ing old world. With it, her priv­i­lege.

She ab­sorbs her grand­moth­er’s rage, be­com­ing a liv­ing memo­r­i­al of all the pain and in­jus­tice the im­pe­ri­ous Bur­ri­mum­my re­peat­ed­ly hauls back from her past to tell and retell to Pop­pet. Just as she is con­stant­ly pulled in­to the old wounds, so is the read­er. The sto­ry is craft­ed so the read­er vis­cer­al­ly ex­pe­ri­ences how trau­ma loops around, com­ing back and back through gen­er­a­tions to warp the fu­ture.

Set in In­dia, Eng­land, Trinidad and a week­end in St Lu­cia, with No­bel Lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott Love the Dark Days fol­lows the sto­ry of a girl, Pop­pet, of mixed mid­dle-class Hin­du and Elite Mus­lim parent­age from post-in­de­pen­dent In­dia to her fam­i­ly’s mi­gra­tion to post-colo­nial Trinidad. Pro­found­ly raw, un­flinch­ing, lay­ered, but not with­out threads of hu­mour and per­ceived ab­sur­di­ty, Love the Dark Days re­assem­bles the sto­ry of a dis­in­te­grat­ing Em­pire.

That dam­age of un­be­long­ing is re­peat­ed when her fam­i­ly mi­grates to Trinidad, where, in her dark­est hour, she meets Wal­cott, who en­cour­ages her when she vis­its him in St Lu­cia over a week­end to leave the past be­hind and rein­vent her­self. Be­fore she can do this, Pop­pet must re-en­ter the past one last time.

Can she find the courage to ex­am­ine each bro­ken shard of her shat­tered fam­i­ly and re­assem­ble it in­to a new shape in a new world? Love the Dark Days is an in­tri­cate ta­pes­try with Pop­pet’s sto­ry at its heart.

Ira Mathur at her book signing at the Nehru Centre in London on Wednesday.

Praise for Math­ur’s book

“Glo­ri­ous writ­ing full of hard-won wis­dom. A tran­scen­dent mem­oir about ex­tremes of love and hate, prince­ly wealth and the re­bel­lious, right­eous poor. I loved it.”—Mag­gie Gee

“Mov­ing from pre-In­de­pen­dence In­dia to Trinidad and Lon­don, we see the grow­ing pains of the au­thor, as she de­codes her re­la­tion­ships with her glam­orous par­ents, her beau­ti­ful pi­ano-play­ing au­thor­i­ta­tive grand­moth­er and her two sib­lings. In a world be­tween pover­ty and priv­i­lege, she is guid­ed by Derek Wal­cott and Naipaul is ever-present. Ul­ti­mate­ly, she has to find her own voice, her own truth and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. A win­dow in­to a world, rich in his­to­ry, that few know about. A com­pelling read.”—Shra­bani Ba­su

“A blaze of a book, a Caribbean fem­i­nist mem­oir that ex­am­ines in­her­it­ed pa­tri­ar­chal abuse of women and so­ci­etal norms brought from the Old World to the New. This ex­quis­ite­ly writ­ten mem­oir ex­am­ines fa­mil­ial love and fate­ful blood ties while scru­ti­n­is­ing, with com­pas­sion, a flawed pa­tri­arch and ma­gus too, Derek Wal­cott. Math­ur deft­ly yokes to­geth­er par­al­lel worlds, colo­nial In­dia and post-colo­nial Trinidad. Both worlds are dark, and both worlds hurt women.” —Monique Rof­fey

“Math­ur brings alive star­tling episodes from her tech­ni­colour life, prov­ing truth is not just stranger but of­ten more com­pelling than fic­tion. There is a sense of her burn­ing through her days, reck­less, raw, pas­sion­ate at times. For all that, she of­fers the em­bers of her life with a rarely found wis­dom. An ex­quis­ite, com­pas­sion­ate, and nec­es­sary book.”—Aman­da Smyth

Andrew Whitehead, former BBC World Service editor and Delhi correspondent Jeremy Poynting at the launch of Ira Mathur’s book on Empire at the Nehru Centre, Mayfair, London, on Wednesday.

“One of the most pow­er­ful and ex­cit­ing new voic­es in con­tem­po­rary lit­er­a­ture. Love the Dark Days is an ex­tra­or­di­nary, mul­ti-lay­ered mem­oir, draw­ing threads from the colo­nial past in­to a mov­ing, con­tem­po­rary sto­ry of frag­ile re­la­tion­ships. Ira Math­ur is a re­al find.” —David Hav­i­land

“What mar­vel­lous and heart-rend­ing cross­roads mul­ti­plied dur­ing the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Be­tween east, west, north, and south; many kinds of an­cient and un­told modes of mod­ern; from ‘man’ and ‘woman’ to vul­ner­a­ble be­ings of imag­i­na­tion and heart…Over the years I have wit­nessed Ira Math­ur nav­i­gat­ing an all too hu­man writer’s life, I have yearned for her to put some­thing of her beau­ty, wis­dom and pain in­to print. Here it is. Stranger and more com­pelling than any fan­ta­sy, here we are.”—Vah­ni (An­tho­ny Ezekiel) Capildeo

“This brave and in­spir­ing fem­i­nist cri­tique of pa­tri­archy and gen­der op­pres­sion has won­der­ful promise as a bit­ing movie adap­ta­tion for the #MeToo era.”—Etan Vless­ing, Hol­ly­wood re­porter

“I was trans­port­ed by this gem of a mem­oir, writ­ten over even years by an award-win­ning, In­di­an-born jour­nal­ist, dubbed the “Jon Snow” of Trinidad. Set in her home na­tion, but al­so St Lu­cia, In­dia and Lon­don, it’s a mul­ti-lay­ered ac­count of a woman grow­ing to fem­i­nist ma­tu­ri­ty while grap­pling with the on­go­ing trau­mas that re­sult from her tur­bu­lent child­hood. With many mem­o­rable char­ac­ters, in­clud­ing her for­mi­da­ble grand­moth­er Bur­ri­mum­my, it al­so fea­tures No­bel Lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott, who was a men­tor of her work. Monique Rof­fey is spot on when she calls it a “blaze of a book”. —Car­o­line Sander­son, The Book­seller

“A com­pelling mem­oir of the bind­ing pow­er of love and the lib­er­at­ing beau­ty of for­give­ness.”—Earl Lovelace

↓ABOUT The book
Ti­tle: Love the Dark Days Au­thor: Ira Math­ur
Au­thor’s web­site: www.iras­room.org
Pub­lish­er: Peepal Tree Press
US re­lease date: Ju­ly 7, 2022
Genre: Mem­oir For­mat: Roy­al size pa­per­back edi­tion with French flaps Pages: 230 Avail­able at: Peepal Tree Press, Ama­zon UK and Ama­zon US