By Selma Carvalho
Lindsay Pereira’s fourth book is titled Super (Harper Collins, 2026), a pun on the word which the protagonist Sukhpreet Gill is fond of using to express appreciation but is also a job commonly undertaken by immigrants in North America, that of superintendent or maintenance man of a block of flats, the popular contraction being “super.”
By Selma Carvalho
Humour is notoriously difficult to render, isn’t it? So, it really is nice to hear that it works in the book. Indeed, I wanted there to be an obvious satirical element in the story and the suitors provide the perfect opportunity to demonstrate some real and very wild things one has heard of, or seen, in society. While I wanted readers to have a laugh at these figures (and maybe at themselves), I also hoped to point out the ludicrousness of what the characters subject themselves and others to. This is why the second half of the book brings back some of the occurrences from the first half, but in less funny ways.
By Selma Carvalho
Issue no 23
Reshma Ruia is an award-winning British-Asian writer. Her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup was described in the Sunday Times as ‘a gem of straight-faced comedy.’ Her second novel A Mouthful of Silence was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. Here in conversation with Reshma, we discuss her newly released collection of short stories titled Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness (Dahlia Press, 2021) exploring characters who are trying to heal from their wounded selves.
