Love the Dark Days by Ira Mathur (Sept. – Nov. 2022)

Please join us for our Fall 2022 blog tour for Love the Dark Days by Ira Mathur, published by Peepal Tree Press Ltd. in Sept. 2022.

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 Ira 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.

Set in India, England, Trinidad and a weekend in St Lucia, with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott Love the Dark Days (Peepal Tree Press) 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.

Advance Praise:

“One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. A beautiful beautiful book.” –Michael Portillo, Times Radio

“Love The Dark Days is a troubled and troubling book, a heady brew that stays with you.” – The Observer

“A transcendent memoir about extremes of love and hate, princely wealth, and the rebellious, righteous poor. I loved it.” – Maggie Gee

“This brave and inspiring feminist critique of patriarchy and gender oppression set in Trinidad– framed by the delusional greed and grandeur of colonial India and a weekend in St. Lucia spent with Nobel laureate Derek Walcott — has terrific promise as a biting movie adaptation for the #MeToo era” – Etan Vlessing, Hollywood Reporter

About the Author:

Ira Mathur is an Indian born Caribbean freelance journalist/writer working in radio, television and print in Trinidad, West Indies. She also is currently a Sunday Guardian columnist and feature writer.

Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Add to GoodReads:

Available at Amazon.

Blog Tour Schedule:

Sept. 13: BooksParlour (Instagram review)

Oct. 6: The Reading Bud (review)

Oct. 12: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)

Oct. 18: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (interview)

Oct. 27: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)

Nov. 24: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)

Dec. 30: Anthony Avina’s blog (guest post)

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