Roma Tearne was only ten years old when she fled Sri Lanka with her parents in 1964. War had broken out, and her Singhalese mother had been made an outcast from her own family for marrying a Tamil man. In search of safety, they embarked on a 21-day sea voyage to England.
The same journey is made by Alice Fonseka, the central character in Roma’s new novel Brixton Beach, the story of a Sri Lankan girl whose family’s fate is inextricably bound to the ethnic tensions which has mired the island’s recent past. Roma Tearne joins Jenni to talk about the impact Sri Lanka’s civil war has had on her own family, and how those experiences have fuelled the autobiographical elements of Brixton Beach.
'Brixton Beach' by Roma Tearne is published by Harper Press on June 1st 2009
