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Amma
Three generations. Three continents. Three sexualities.
1951. Singapore. Ten-year-old Josephina kills her abuser.
This trauma becomes the defining moment in the lives of Josephina, her daughter Sithera, and her granddaughter Annie.
The effects cascade through generations as Annie sets out across the world to discover what happened to her fractured family.
Set in Sri Lanka, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and London, Amma is a novel about family, displacement, secrets, and how the past lives with us forever.
Written in sensuous, vivid prose, Amma is a story of the rich history and unknown future of the Sri Lankan diaspora — and of one family desperately trying to find peace.
1951. Singapore. Ten-year-old Josephina kills her abuser.
This trauma becomes the defining moment in the lives of Josephina, her daughter Sithera, and her granddaughter Annie.
The effects cascade through generations as Annie sets out across the world to discover what happened to her fractured family.
Set in Sri Lanka, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and London, Amma is a novel about family, displacement, secrets, and how the past lives with us forever.
Written in sensuous, vivid prose, Amma is a story of the rich history and unknown future of the Sri Lankan diaspora — and of one family desperately trying to find peace.
282 pages, Paperback
Published April 4, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 11, 2023
Josephina accepted that taking a man's life would have consequences. But she thought they clung only to her, When she smelled the dead on her daughter's skin she felt sure something bad was coming. That she would look into her baby's eyes and see retribution looking back, but in the room there was only silence. There was only a little baby girl, born with a head of hair so full the midwife whooped when she crowned.
Amma is a debut novel by Sri Lankan Pākehā writer Saraid de Silva and won the inaugural Crystal Arts Trust Prize in 2021 before being edited and published in the UK by Weatherglass Books.
It will be available in 2024 for subscribers to Weatherglass Books (see below) and/or the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month club.
The first three chapters introduce us to the three key matrilineal characters:
- Annie: Annie Ano Fernando (b. 1990), who we first meet in London in 2018, where she has gone in search of her uncle, Suri, of who she has no memories, him having left New Zealand for London in the early 90s
- Sithara: Maria Louisa Sithara Fernando (b. 1969), her mother and Suri's elder sister, who we first meet in Invercargill, New Zealand, a small town that thinks it is a city, at the bottom of a country full of white people who think they live in England, where she and her husband Ravi emigrated in 1978 from Sri Lanka.
- Josephina: Josephina Colette Paluvettaraiyar (b. 1941), Annie's grandmother and the titular 'Amma', who we meet in Singapore, 1951, where she lives with her parents, but largely cared for by her grandmother who is originally from Pondicherry.
de Silva currently works as a writer for a New Zealand's longest-running soap opera, and each of these chapters draws the reader into the story of the family, most dramatically in the case of Josephina who, aged just 10, is raped by the father of a potential suitor (seemingly with her parent's tacit connivance), and reacts by pushing a marble statue of Mary onto her attacker's head, killing him.
Gran killed her rapist. Somehow this is not new; it is like a song Annie is listening to decades later, remembering all of the lyrics. Gran killed her rapist because of course she did. Annie sees the three of them — Gran, Mum and herself —swimming in the same dark water.They don't cross paths, they just stay side by side, keeping their eyes locked on one another.
This is a novel of people finding their place in the world, both geographically, and in their sexuality and relationships. The story continues to alternate between the third-person perspectives of these three generations of women, moving non-linearly through time and taking Amma, and us, from Singapore, to Colombo, New Zealand (from Invercargill to Hamilton and Christchurch) and then to Melbourne, with Annie's side-trip to see Suri in London.
The violence that began Josephina's introduction to her developing sexual attractiveness to predatory men runs as a current throughout the novel, as is the theme of the three women each taking control and where needed retaliation (Josephina on her rapist; Sithara on some white youths who threaten Suri when they discover he is gay; and Annie on her errant and violent father, Paul).
But the novel's highlight is the lush, evocative prose. Distinctively the state of the characters' hair is a key motif and signaller of their moods - starting with how we are introduced to Sithara:
Maria Louisa Sithara Fernando sits on the floor of her bedroom getting ready for school. It is 7am on a frozen morning in July. Her room is lit by one bulb on a stand with no lampshade. Her hair, long enough to kiss her waist, is dead.
Back home, in Colombo, her hair was alive. It floated outwards as though underwater when she was sad, unfurling softly around her face. Sometimes it said the things that she could not. Her hair reached out to her amma when they lay down after lunch, too full and too hot to do anything other than bask like lizards on the wooden seat they called a couch and watch the ceiling fan twist slowly above them. Things have changed since she got here. Her family, herself. Both have shrunk. And when Appa died, her hair gave up.
Or from the same chapter, recalling the family's arrival in a cold, empty New Zealand:
Amma wore a jacket and a coat over a banana-yellow sari. She stuck out on the dull street like a sunflower. They had no real winter clothes. Amma stuffed a pink sarong under a sun hat as they walked here, it drooped out from the rim like big wilted petals. She let her suitcase fall to the footpath, pushed both hands deep into her sleeves and scowled.
Appa just looked at the empty roads, checked left and right as though he had missed something. His hair was like Sithara’s used to be, an extension of his thoughts, breathing. He kept it long at the top, brushed back from his face in an elegant side parting. When he was happy his curls rustled together like whispering leaves.
[...]
Sithara and Suri stood still, as paralysed as their parents, waiting for a cue. Suri’s chubby fingers held Sithara’s tight. She had to make being here okay. She tried to think of something to make Suri smile, but lost the words in surprise when she opened her mouth and saw her breath materialise in front of her. She reached out a hand, trying to touch the ghost of her thoughts.
Where are all the people? Appa said softly, as the strangeness of this place poured over them all.
This is the epitome of the great story-telling built up from beautiful sentence-making which Weatherglass Books was founded to publish - highly recommended and a book I very much hope to see on the Women's Prize for Fiction list.
The publisher
Weatherglass Books is a small independent press founded by Neil Griffiths (novelist and founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses) and Damian Lanigan (novelist and playwright).
They publish three novels a year, all of the highest literary quality, and I would highly recommend their subscription service.
Weatherglass was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today. Weatherglass Books wants to clear a space for the next The Blue Flower.
“Running the Republic of Consciousness Prize I read hundreds of novels from small presses and loved a great many, but I did feel an absence of novels that were somehow exquisite at the simplest level: great story-telling built up from beautiful sentence-making.” Neil Griffiths, co-publisher
"We’re looking for intelligent, original, beautiful writing, and we're finding it. Additionally - maybe it's a reaction to the unhinged, fictional-seeming times we live in - we find writers trying to be truthful. It's a fascinating combination: writers who have extraordinary things to say, and are saying them with energy and style, whilst also trying to express something real and true about the world. It's bracing and exciting. It feels like the perfect time to start a literary press.” Damian Lanigan, co-publisher
Amma is a debut novel by Sri Lankan Pākehā writer Saraid de Silva and won the inaugural Crystal Arts Trust Prize in 2021 before being edited and published in the UK by Weatherglass Books.
It will be available in 2024 for subscribers to Weatherglass Books (see below) and/or the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month club.
The first three chapters introduce us to the three key matrilineal characters:
- Annie: Annie Ano Fernando (b. 1990), who we first meet in London in 2018, where she has gone in search of her uncle, Suri, of who she has no memories, him having left New Zealand for London in the early 90s
- Sithara: Maria Louisa Sithara Fernando (b. 1969), her mother and Suri's elder sister, who we first meet in Invercargill, New Zealand, a small town that thinks it is a city, at the bottom of a country full of white people who think they live in England, where she and her husband Ravi emigrated in 1978 from Sri Lanka.
- Josephina: Josephina Colette Paluvettaraiyar (b. 1941), Annie's grandmother and the titular 'Amma', who we meet in Singapore, 1951, where she lives with her parents, but largely cared for by her grandmother who is originally from Pondicherry.
de Silva currently works as a writer for a New Zealand's longest-running soap opera, and each of these chapters draws the reader into the story of the family, most dramatically in the case of Josephina who, aged just 10, is raped by the father of a potential suitor (seemingly with her parent's tacit connivance), and reacts by pushing a marble statue of Mary onto her attacker's head, killing him.
Gran killed her rapist. Somehow this is not new; it is like a song Annie is listening to decades later, remembering all of the lyrics. Gran killed her rapist because of course she did. Annie sees the three of them — Gran, Mum and herself —swimming in the same dark water.They don't cross paths, they just stay side by side, keeping their eyes locked on one another.
This is a novel of people finding their place in the world, both geographically, and in their sexuality and relationships. The story continues to alternate between the third-person perspectives of these three generations of women, moving non-linearly through time and taking Amma, and us, from Singapore, to Colombo, New Zealand (from Invercargill to Hamilton and Christchurch) and then to Melbourne, with Annie's side-trip to see Suri in London.
The violence that began Josephina's introduction to her developing sexual attractiveness to predatory men runs as a current throughout the novel, as is the theme of the three women each taking control and where needed retaliation (Josephina on her rapist; Sithara on some white youths who threaten Suri when they discover he is gay; and Annie on her errant and violent father, Paul).
But the novel's highlight is the lush, evocative prose. Distinctively the state of the characters' hair is a key motif and signaller of their moods - starting with how we are introduced to Sithara:
Maria Louisa Sithara Fernando sits on the floor of her bedroom getting ready for school. It is 7am on a frozen morning in July. Her room is lit by one bulb on a stand with no lampshade. Her hair, long enough to kiss her waist, is dead.
Back home, in Colombo, her hair was alive. It floated outwards as though underwater when she was sad, unfurling softly around her face. Sometimes it said the things that she could not. Her hair reached out to her amma when they lay down after lunch, too full and too hot to do anything other than bask like lizards on the wooden seat they called a couch and watch the ceiling fan twist slowly above them. Things have changed since she got here. Her family, herself. Both have shrunk. And when Appa died, her hair gave up.
Or from the same chapter, recalling the family's arrival in a cold, empty New Zealand:
Amma wore a jacket and a coat over a banana-yellow sari. She stuck out on the dull street like a sunflower. They had no real winter clothes. Amma stuffed a pink sarong under a sun hat as they walked here, it drooped out from the rim like big wilted petals. She let her suitcase fall to the footpath, pushed both hands deep into her sleeves and scowled.
Appa just looked at the empty roads, checked left and right as though he had missed something. His hair was like Sithara’s used to be, an extension of his thoughts, breathing. He kept it long at the top, brushed back from his face in an elegant side parting. When he was happy his curls rustled together like whispering leaves.
[...]
Sithara and Suri stood still, as paralysed as their parents, waiting for a cue. Suri’s chubby fingers held Sithara’s tight. She had to make being here okay. She tried to think of something to make Suri smile, but lost the words in surprise when she opened her mouth and saw her breath materialise in front of her. She reached out a hand, trying to touch the ghost of her thoughts.
Where are all the people? Appa said softly, as the strangeness of this place poured over them all.
This is the epitome of the great story-telling built up from beautiful sentence-making which Weatherglass Books was founded to publish - highly recommended and a book I very much hope to see on the Women's Prize for Fiction list.
The publisher
Weatherglass Books is a small independent press founded by Neil Griffiths (novelist and founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses) and Damian Lanigan (novelist and playwright).
They publish three novels a year, all of the highest literary quality, and I would highly recommend their subscription service.
Weatherglass was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today. Weatherglass Books wants to clear a space for the next The Blue Flower.
“Running the Republic of Consciousness Prize I read hundreds of novels from small presses and loved a great many, but I did feel an absence of novels that were somehow exquisite at the simplest level: great story-telling built up from beautiful sentence-making.” Neil Griffiths, co-publisher
"We’re looking for intelligent, original, beautiful writing, and we're finding it. Additionally - maybe it's a reaction to the unhinged, fictional-seeming times we live in - we find writers trying to be truthful. It's a fascinating combination: writers who have extraordinary things to say, and are saying them with energy and style, whilst also trying to express something real and true about the world. It's bracing and exciting. It feels like the perfect time to start a literary press.” Damian Lanigan, co-publisher
April 11, 2024
Such beautiful writing and story
March 22, 2024
Amma (2024) by Saraid de Silva is a time-hopping, peripatetic debut novel that explores the matrilineal line of a single family over three generations. Though it chronologically runs from 1951 through 2019, de Silva presents a fractured narrative, jumping back and forward between key situations in the characters’ lives, gradually peeling away the layers of its story to reveal a tale about diaspora, family, and fitting in.
The novel opens in London, 2018, with Annie Ano Fernando, calling upon her uncle Suri who she has never met. No sooner has he opened the door, we are whisked off Invercargill in 1984, to meet a school-aged instance of Sithara, Annie’s mother. Then, following an incident there with local lads, we land in Singapore, in 1951, where the story finds its real inciting incident. Ten year old Josephina (the Amma of the title) is locked in a room with a rich Englishsman, her potential new father-in-law, who rapes her, seemingly with her parents’ tacit approval. It’s an awful and scarring moment that effectively drives the generational dynamic and the attitudes therein.
Across the decades, we may say that all human life is here, but even while weighted to the more miserable side, it never feels heavy or forced. In fact, there’s a lightness to de Salva’s prose and it’s polished enough to sparkle (“They sieve her, trying to shake out a flaw.”) while never being showy. But where the real strength comes is in the believable characters that run through its pages. Come the last page, I could happily have spent more time with them. Maybe this is because we see them all growing up, as the book hops around, and we see how their reaction to events in the past have shaped their future. But maybe just because, through good and bad, they are fully-formed and full of life.
In reading Amma, I was somewhat reminded of Jonathan Escoffery’s recent debut, If I Survive You (2022) where the younger son in an immigrant family searched for himself at the crossroads of culture and community. Amma treads similar, if less experimental ground, with its three generations experiencing difficulties fitting in, not just in terms of place but with each other.
With Annie, naive to her family’s past, she acts as a way into the broader story. Her youthful zest is at odds with those that have gone before, Her attitude to her abusive father is one-eighty to her mother’s open arms. The experience around her sexuality comes differently than to her gay uncle. But familial attitudes are ultimately driven by her gran whose own shame resonates through the bloodline directing attitudes and actions.
Overall it’s a tight storyline, with great steady-as-she-goes writing (though I occasionally got a bit disoriented with the switching timelines). Across its canvas we find people are likely to find their place in the world easier, whether that be in geography, relationships, or sexuality when acceptance is at the heart of families that move forward with neither secrets nor shame.
The novel opens in London, 2018, with Annie Ano Fernando, calling upon her uncle Suri who she has never met. No sooner has he opened the door, we are whisked off Invercargill in 1984, to meet a school-aged instance of Sithara, Annie’s mother. Then, following an incident there with local lads, we land in Singapore, in 1951, where the story finds its real inciting incident. Ten year old Josephina (the Amma of the title) is locked in a room with a rich Englishsman, her potential new father-in-law, who rapes her, seemingly with her parents’ tacit approval. It’s an awful and scarring moment that effectively drives the generational dynamic and the attitudes therein.
Across the decades, we may say that all human life is here, but even while weighted to the more miserable side, it never feels heavy or forced. In fact, there’s a lightness to de Salva’s prose and it’s polished enough to sparkle (“They sieve her, trying to shake out a flaw.”) while never being showy. But where the real strength comes is in the believable characters that run through its pages. Come the last page, I could happily have spent more time with them. Maybe this is because we see them all growing up, as the book hops around, and we see how their reaction to events in the past have shaped their future. But maybe just because, through good and bad, they are fully-formed and full of life.
In reading Amma, I was somewhat reminded of Jonathan Escoffery’s recent debut, If I Survive You (2022) where the younger son in an immigrant family searched for himself at the crossroads of culture and community. Amma treads similar, if less experimental ground, with its three generations experiencing difficulties fitting in, not just in terms of place but with each other.
With Annie, naive to her family’s past, she acts as a way into the broader story. Her youthful zest is at odds with those that have gone before, Her attitude to her abusive father is one-eighty to her mother’s open arms. The experience around her sexuality comes differently than to her gay uncle. But familial attitudes are ultimately driven by her gran whose own shame resonates through the bloodline directing attitudes and actions.
Overall it’s a tight storyline, with great steady-as-she-goes writing (though I occasionally got a bit disoriented with the switching timelines). Across its canvas we find people are likely to find their place in the world easier, whether that be in geography, relationships, or sexuality when acceptance is at the heart of families that move forward with neither secrets nor shame.
May 3, 2024
This left my gut tied up in knots.
Truly, truly beautiful
Truly, truly beautiful
February 1, 2024
Saraid de Silva’s debut novel Amma is a book of diaspora, generational trauma and queerness. We follow the intertwining lives and different timelines of three generations of women: Josephina, Sithara and Annie, moving between Singapore, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia and London. We watch each generation of the family adjust to the difficulties of displacement, interpersonal relationships and finding their place in new environments.
The beginning of the novel sees Josephina struggling with the anticipation of the child marriage her parents are planning for her. On being introduced to her new father-in-law, he rapes Josephina and she retaliates in an unexpected way. The resulting impacts of the event reverberate throughout the generations of the three women. Similar abuse is experience by Sithara from her husband Paul, who is eventually imprisoned for his abusive crimes against her. A sense of redemption is felt when Annie’s girlfriend convinces her to meet up with her father after he is out of prison, but Annie responds with rage and a refusal to forgive her father for abusing her mother. We also follow the lives of Josephina’s children Sithara and Suri, and their struggle to adjust to life in New Zealand having left Sri Lanka. They are bullied and teased for being foreign, but get through the hateful isolation together.
De Silva also represents the difficulties and dangers experienced by queer individuals, as seen in the lives of Annie and Suri. As a young boy, Suri sexually experiments with a boy called Chintu who had been staying with and working for his family. On discovering the two boys together, Josephina shuns Chintu, sending him away to the police. Similarly, when Suri comes out to his mother at the age of 18, she rejects him, and burns his belongings in a rage. In a bitter-sweet contrast, when Annie finally comes out to her grandmother, she is accepted with open arms. Despite this, we still see the dangers Annie experiences as a queer woman. As a ‘stunty’, Annie runs classes for other actors to work with their stunt doubles. After being chased when she is found kissing a woman, she changes her classes to self defence lessons specifically for queer people.
The ending of the novel feels like a full circle moment, seeing loose ends being tied with Annie coming out to her grandmother, Suri returning home, and Josephina admitting that she killed her abuser. The novel is heart-breaking and challenging, at its core exploring the power of family history and what it means to be human in environments which reject or isolate you.
The beginning of the novel sees Josephina struggling with the anticipation of the child marriage her parents are planning for her. On being introduced to her new father-in-law, he rapes Josephina and she retaliates in an unexpected way. The resulting impacts of the event reverberate throughout the generations of the three women. Similar abuse is experience by Sithara from her husband Paul, who is eventually imprisoned for his abusive crimes against her. A sense of redemption is felt when Annie’s girlfriend convinces her to meet up with her father after he is out of prison, but Annie responds with rage and a refusal to forgive her father for abusing her mother. We also follow the lives of Josephina’s children Sithara and Suri, and their struggle to adjust to life in New Zealand having left Sri Lanka. They are bullied and teased for being foreign, but get through the hateful isolation together.
De Silva also represents the difficulties and dangers experienced by queer individuals, as seen in the lives of Annie and Suri. As a young boy, Suri sexually experiments with a boy called Chintu who had been staying with and working for his family. On discovering the two boys together, Josephina shuns Chintu, sending him away to the police. Similarly, when Suri comes out to his mother at the age of 18, she rejects him, and burns his belongings in a rage. In a bitter-sweet contrast, when Annie finally comes out to her grandmother, she is accepted with open arms. Despite this, we still see the dangers Annie experiences as a queer woman. As a ‘stunty’, Annie runs classes for other actors to work with their stunt doubles. After being chased when she is found kissing a woman, she changes her classes to self defence lessons specifically for queer people.
The ending of the novel feels like a full circle moment, seeing loose ends being tied with Annie coming out to her grandmother, Suri returning home, and Josephina admitting that she killed her abuser. The novel is heart-breaking and challenging, at its core exploring the power of family history and what it means to be human in environments which reject or isolate you.
April 4, 2024
Amma, in de Silva’s own words, is “a story about queerness, migration, rage, and revenge,” which explores the idea that the past is an indelible presence in our lives, no matter where our journey takes us. This impressive multi-generational saga is set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and London. The narrative is non-linear, but never hard to follow. De Silva's writing is clean and simple yet richly detailed, inviting readers into a family that carries secrets, mistakes, resentment, love and difficult truths whose consequences ripple through time.
Every generation has a hard time finding out who they are and where they belong, and each character's journey is beautifully drawn and profoundly moving. Josephina and her daughter Sithara show remarkable strength in the face of violence, and I liked how their stories never felt predictable despite familiar themes. I was especially fond of Annie and her uncle Suri who each struggles in different ways with family pressures and the importance of being true to themselves. Fans of Greta & Valdin, Pachinko or The Namesake will find much to love in Amma, especially its evocative storytelling and well-drawn characters.
I’m hoping it will find its way to the United States soon, because you don’t want to miss this impressive new voice. Many thanks to Weatherglass Books for the #gifted pdf of the book! I loved it!
4.5/5 stars
Every generation has a hard time finding out who they are and where they belong, and each character's journey is beautifully drawn and profoundly moving. Josephina and her daughter Sithara show remarkable strength in the face of violence, and I liked how their stories never felt predictable despite familiar themes. I was especially fond of Annie and her uncle Suri who each struggles in different ways with family pressures and the importance of being true to themselves. Fans of Greta & Valdin, Pachinko or The Namesake will find much to love in Amma, especially its evocative storytelling and well-drawn characters.
I’m hoping it will find its way to the United States soon, because you don’t want to miss this impressive new voice. Many thanks to Weatherglass Books for the #gifted pdf of the book! I loved it!
4.5/5 stars
April 2, 2024
Oh my goodness I don't even know how to properly describe how I feel about this story. The prose is so beautiful, I heard and smelled and tasted this novel. Each layer of the puzzle of this family was revealed so cleverly. The different perspectives of the three main women in this book blended together beautifully - it was so CLEVER to hear a first-hand account of one of their experiences, and then the next chapter hear little fragments of the same experience from another of the women - how what had happened impacted each of them, the ripple effect of trauma across generations... Sometimes it was the other way round - you were fed tidbits of information, thinking you would never see the whole truth laid bare, and then all of a sudden it would be handed to you without you expecting it. Unbelievable. Genius.
The references to the casual and not casual racism inherent to England, Australia and Aotearoa, the brilliantly blunt revelation that there is not a white man in this story that can be trusted, the tender moments of queer joy and grief and understanding - it's all brilliant. This story humbles you too - it draws you in, hooks you in by your desire to stare at someone else's painful truth, and then completely disarms you with it's complexity as it explains itself to you.
Please read this book. We're so bloody lucky it's been written.
The references to the casual and not casual racism inherent to England, Australia and Aotearoa, the brilliantly blunt revelation that there is not a white man in this story that can be trusted, the tender moments of queer joy and grief and understanding - it's all brilliant. This story humbles you too - it draws you in, hooks you in by your desire to stare at someone else's painful truth, and then completely disarms you with it's complexity as it explains itself to you.
Please read this book. We're so bloody lucky it's been written.
April 4, 2024
Spoiler Free Review 💭
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Don't let this pretty cover deceive you. It carries a lot within its pages 😭💕
This story follows 3 generations of women in their family. Josephina (nan), Sithara (mum), Annie (daughter), and the struggles they go through with a lot of cultural view points. To say that this story is compelling is an understatement. My heart cried for these women while reading it, I took my thoughts to some of my book friends who would listen. The hurt in this family, the longing, the way family members who are torn apart from the decisions they made, some of the things in this novel I could relate to on a personal level. I felt, I hurt, I cried. But at the end of it all, it goes to show that the love within your family really does conquer all.
This was poetic, raw, and eye-opening. At times, this family faced similar battles, unbeknownst to them that they weren't alone in their battles.
It moved me, and I at times had to put this book down to let myself feel the feelings that were ripping straight out of my chest.
There's trauma, there's pain, there's hurt... and there's love. All entwined together and like a cobweb on an early spring morning, some parts broken, but beautiful, glistening as it's morning dew is kissed by the sun.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Don't let this pretty cover deceive you. It carries a lot within its pages 😭💕
This story follows 3 generations of women in their family. Josephina (nan), Sithara (mum), Annie (daughter), and the struggles they go through with a lot of cultural view points. To say that this story is compelling is an understatement. My heart cried for these women while reading it, I took my thoughts to some of my book friends who would listen. The hurt in this family, the longing, the way family members who are torn apart from the decisions they made, some of the things in this novel I could relate to on a personal level. I felt, I hurt, I cried. But at the end of it all, it goes to show that the love within your family really does conquer all.
This was poetic, raw, and eye-opening. At times, this family faced similar battles, unbeknownst to them that they weren't alone in their battles.
It moved me, and I at times had to put this book down to let myself feel the feelings that were ripping straight out of my chest.
There's trauma, there's pain, there's hurt... and there's love. All entwined together and like a cobweb on an early spring morning, some parts broken, but beautiful, glistening as it's morning dew is kissed by the sun.
January 21, 2024
I was lucky enough to find a proofreading copy of Amma on a shelf at my workplace (a bookstore, shockingly enough), and took it home on a whim. I am very grateful for this whim. Saraid de Silva is an exceptional talent. It is rare to find a book so full of love that it becomes tangible; Amma is a poignant love letter to family, to culture, and to queer identity. The voices of Josephina, Sithara, and Annie are vivid and strong, and my heart broke and filled for all of them. Truly a great read.
May 7, 2024
Wow! What a powerful book. I think it successfully highlights the struggles to intergenerational trauma. The discussion of race, gender, and sexuality is fascinating and moving. Really enjoyed this one. Only giving it 4 stars bc I could’ve done with less analogies and metaphors and I would’ve liked more detail.
February 27, 2024
Gorgeous, heart-breaking, life-affirming.
April 1, 2024
Such a beautiful intergenerational narrative
April 9, 2024
Amma is truly a beautiful story, it reached right into my heart as I journeyed with Josephina, Sithara and Annie. I wish I could read it again for the first time
April 24, 2024
I inhaled this book in a day, this book is so beautifully written. All of the characters, flawed yet lovable and all with their own tragic stories. I look forward to reading more of her books.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews