“Displacement emotional or geographical is a predicament of our times. We are more interconnected yet lonelier than ever.”

– Reshma Ruia,
Kitaab, 4 January 2017 

“It is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ that interests me as a writer, but the murkiness of human experience and the consistent imperfections of our lives.”

– Elizabeth Strout

Interview with Chris Ord.

Chris is an acclaimed writer with his roots firmly in the north. It was fun to feature on his blog and talk about my proudest moment as a writer, my heroes in real life and in fiction and which writer I would love to meet dead or alive.

It was a pleasure to talk to Joy Francis, the founder of Words of Colour. We shared our love of the short story genre and writing about everyday heroes on the margins of history and discussed how Still Lives, was subverting the narrative around diaspora fiction.

New novel – Still Lives, published by Renard Press. Out now.

“This is your must-read book for the summer.” – Selma Carvalho

Still Lives is a tightly woven, haunting work that pulls apart the threads of a family and plays with notions of identity. Shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize.

The novel is a multi-cultural family saga about betrayal, love and belonging. It is set in Manchester and it explores a man’s desire for love and fulfilment and his need to weigh it against family loyalties and expectations of the society around him. It portrays the arc of an entire lifetime, not just the tug of the past, but also the pull towards a better-imagined future. The story is about a family slowly falling apart, but it also provides a twist on the conventional immigrant story, by challenging assumptions regarding identity, assimilation and what it means to be old and still be consumed by fires.

The book can be pre-ordered now from Amazon and all bookshops:
Renard Press
Amazon
Waterstones
Foyles

“Compelling characters, fantastic prose, sexy, funny and wise.”

– Heidi James

“Read through first 100 pages of Reshma Ruia’s book and am absolutely loving it. Have not come across such beautifully observed British Asian fiction in a very long time. Make this one a best seller.”

– Selma Carvalho

A peripatetic childhood that spans India, Italy, France and Britain. Reshma Ruia is at home nowhere and everywhere, a magpie, cherry-picking facts and fables from every culture and society. It’s what writers do – everything is material. They are scavengers and creators. Their roots are portable. Their imagination infinite.

She has a PhD and Masters (Distinction) in Creative Writing and Critical Thought from Manchester University and postgraduate (Distinction) and undergraduate degrees from the London School of Economics.

Born in India, but brought up in Italy, her narrative portrays the inherent tensions and preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging.

She is Fiction Editor of Jaggerylit.com.

Guest Book Reviewer Words of Colour.

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Reshma Ruia. It was a challenge to only pick one book per decade from five consecutive decades. There were so many that had to be left behind!

Reshma Ruia, the UN Economist – turned Writer
– Asian Voice, 3 November 2014

From First Page to Last. A Q&A with Janet Emson about the writing process, the meaning of fame and the one book I could read for the rest of my life. Posted on 12.01.22

A conversation about writing across genres, about families and displacement, and how an individual negotiates their way without getting lost. My interview with Priyanka Purkaystha, a Berlin-based book blogger. 23 March 2023.

An interview with The Asian Writer, 7 December 2021
“I find identity and belonging to be very fluid and dynamic terms. I have lived across continents, languages and cultures and my sense of who I am or where I belong is constantly shifting. Rather than bricks and mortar, or a physical construct- my sense of belonging depends on my emotional attachment to a place, a sense or a feeling.”