Melancholy and menace

THE sense of place is a constant in Roma Tearne’s work. Not surprising, considering she fled her troubled homeland of Sri Lanka at the age of 10 and has never been back. The daughter of a controversial mixed-race marriage, she became a streetwise kid on the streets of Brixton and now lives among the dreaming spires of Oxford. In between, she enjoyed a couple of happy years in East Anglia.

Her new novel, The Swimmer, is set on the Suffolk coast. It’s a story about love, loss and what home really means, and for the most part is told in three different first-person voices. Ria, a woman approaching her mid 40s, lost her father when she was a child and ever since has struggled to find love.

Then a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka called Ben arrives in Suffolk via Moscow. Pending a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application, he takes a daily swim in the river near Ria’s home. An unconventional but emotional romance follows – defying boundaries, cultures and, dare we say it, the xenophobic fictional residents of Orford. Tragedy isn’t far away, however.

Full report here Eadt

Voice of the suppressed

Roma Tearne's voice trembles with indignation. "I keep being sent YouTube clips showing the most terrible things," she says. "In one a 26-year-old disabled Tamil man is being beaten to death by the army and his body thrown into the sea. Who says the war is over?"

While much of the world merely noted in passing the recent defeat of the LTTE - the Tamil Tigers - and the election victory of President Rajapaksa's coalition, the Sri Lankan-born but British-based painter and author remains galvanised by the island's descent into fascism.

I met Tearne just before the publication of her fourth novel, The Swimmer. It centres on the murder of a Tamil refugee by the police and like her previous three (Mosquito, Bone China and Brixton Beach) her new work is informed by the terrible events of Sri Lanka's civil war, although it is mainly set in Britain.

Full report here Morning Star