A funny, moving story - of coming of age now, where members of a chaotic, creative mixed-heritage family confront love and grief with a rich mix of emotion and comedy
Set in a contemporary mixed heritage British family Artichoke Hearts honours the intersectional lived experience of all its protagonists in a nuanced and deep way, with a lightness of touch rooted in real life. Sita’s personal inspiration for the book, her mother-in-law, Rosie Harrison, an extraordinary bohemian artist, humanitarian and grandmother, is reflected inhow Mira's family is drawn with warmth and cultural specificity to intersecting South Asian and Jewish British experiences, while Jidé, an orphan of the Rwandan Civil War, carries his own history of grief and displacement.
Compelling characters - British Asian school girl Mira Levenson’s world transforms as her charismatic bohemian grandmother Nana Josie faces dying at the same time as Mira falls in love for the first time, with enigmatic refugee school friend Jidé Jackson
By framing the lived multiculturalism of Mira’s family at the heart of the story, we are reminded that Britain is inherently culturally diverse. People identifying as mixed heritage or multiracial are the fastest-growing ethnic demographic group in theUK. Artichoke Hearts meets his moment directly, holding British, South Asian, African and Jewish experience within a single family, not as a representation exercise but as an account of how a growing number of British lives are actually lived, organically encompassing specificity, complexity and universality.
