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Daughters of Empire
A sweeping saga of migration and the challenges it presents one family, this is a story about sisters Ishani, who stays in Trinidad with the family business, and Amira, who migrates with her family to England. Ishani, the older sister full of bluff certainty, is a good-hearted manipulator determined to extend her influence across the seas. Soul-searching Amira, on the other hand, wonders how she will raise three daughters outside the support of her extended family, and whether the values of her traditional Hindu upbringing can provide her children with the means to negotiate the seductions of aggressive British individualism. As a middle-class family able to live in prosperous Mill-Hill, the Vidhurs face little of the hostility experienced by other Caribbean and South Asian migrants, but they too discover that even those with the very best colonial educations may never quite fit in, especially with those who see only color. An examination of education, class, and race, this novel provide a unique look at Caribbean Diaspora.
- GenresFiction
334 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2012
4 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Lakshmi Persaud
5 books15 followersLakshmi Persaud was born in Tunapuna, in the village of Pasea, Trinidad. Her grandparents, Hindus from Uttar Pradesh, moved from India to the Caribbean in the 1890s.
She left Trinidad to do her BA (Hons) and her Ph.D. at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland and her Post-graduate Diploma in Education at Reading University, UK.
Dr Persaud taught at well-regarded grammar schools in the West Indies (Queen’s College in Guyana, Harrison college in Barbados and St. Augustine Girl’s High School in Trinidad).
She moved to the UK in 1974 with her husband, Professor Bishnodat Persaud, prominent economist, and her three children, Rajendra, Avinash and Sharda. Lakshmi wrote articles on socio-economic concerns for newspapers and magazines for many years, she also read and simultaneously recorded books in Philosophy, Economics and Literature for the Royal National Institute for the Blind in London.
She began a new career in the late 1980s - writing fiction. Her short story 'See Saw Margery Daw', was broadcast by the BBC World service on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th November 1995 .
Her first novel 'Butterfly in the Wind' was published by Peepal Tree Press in 1990. It was reprinted in 1996. It is still selling well and now in its third impression. 'Sastra' was published in 1993.
In October 1994, the Trinidad Guardian published the best seller list for Caribbean books published abroad. At the time Lakshmi Persaud had published two novels in the U.K. 'Sastra' was placed first on the list and 'Butterfly in the Wind', fifth.
'For the Love of my Name', her third novel, was launched in December 1999 and public demand has meant it has also had to be reprinted.
In March 2004, 'Raise the Lanterns High' was published by Black Amber and received excellent reviews in the UK, the Caribbean and internationally.
In addition, Lakshmi's books are now rated 'best-selling' by Amazon.co.uk.
There has been increasing recognition of Lakshmi Persaud’s work by academic institutions. Her novels are being used as texts in Caribbean and post-colonial literature courses in a number of Universities including: Warwick, Birmingham, Goldsmiths College (London), London Metropolitan, Washington, Toronto, Puerto Rico, California (Los Angeles), Miami and Mills College (California), and The University of the West Indies. Extracts from her novels have been used in English examinations in the Caribbean from '11+' to GCSE level.
In recognition of her work, Warwick University has recently established a 'Lakshmi Persaud Research Fellowship' at its Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural studies.
She left Trinidad to do her BA (Hons) and her Ph.D. at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland and her Post-graduate Diploma in Education at Reading University, UK.
Dr Persaud taught at well-regarded grammar schools in the West Indies (Queen’s College in Guyana, Harrison college in Barbados and St. Augustine Girl’s High School in Trinidad).
She moved to the UK in 1974 with her husband, Professor Bishnodat Persaud, prominent economist, and her three children, Rajendra, Avinash and Sharda. Lakshmi wrote articles on socio-economic concerns for newspapers and magazines for many years, she also read and simultaneously recorded books in Philosophy, Economics and Literature for the Royal National Institute for the Blind in London.
She began a new career in the late 1980s - writing fiction. Her short story 'See Saw Margery Daw', was broadcast by the BBC World service on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th November 1995 .
Her first novel 'Butterfly in the Wind' was published by Peepal Tree Press in 1990. It was reprinted in 1996. It is still selling well and now in its third impression. 'Sastra' was published in 1993.
In October 1994, the Trinidad Guardian published the best seller list for Caribbean books published abroad. At the time Lakshmi Persaud had published two novels in the U.K. 'Sastra' was placed first on the list and 'Butterfly in the Wind', fifth.
'For the Love of my Name', her third novel, was launched in December 1999 and public demand has meant it has also had to be reprinted.
In March 2004, 'Raise the Lanterns High' was published by Black Amber and received excellent reviews in the UK, the Caribbean and internationally.
In addition, Lakshmi's books are now rated 'best-selling' by Amazon.co.uk.
There has been increasing recognition of Lakshmi Persaud’s work by academic institutions. Her novels are being used as texts in Caribbean and post-colonial literature courses in a number of Universities including: Warwick, Birmingham, Goldsmiths College (London), London Metropolitan, Washington, Toronto, Puerto Rico, California (Los Angeles), Miami and Mills College (California), and The University of the West Indies. Extracts from her novels have been used in English examinations in the Caribbean from '11+' to GCSE level.
In recognition of her work, Warwick University has recently established a 'Lakshmi Persaud Research Fellowship' at its Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural studies.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 7, 2012
Excerpted from the full review:
"Readers often expect that stories strongly populated by female characters will be rooted, for better or worse, in domestic issues and an excess of emotion. Though the concerns of home and family play a vital part in Lakshmi Persaud’s newest novel, Daughters of Empire, they cannot be said to rule it, either. Amira is the predominant narrator, yet space is made for the perspectives of other women to shine through: not just Ishani’s voice is heard, but also the voices of Amira’s three daughters, Anjali, Satisha and Vidya. Dedicating itself to the span of generations, Persaud’s tale traces the journeys of these women, and others, as they do battle with society’s demands. Injustices are experienced on a minor and massive scale; these heroines are betrayed, scarred and manipulated, but it is their own sense of community and personal strength that encourages them to persist. The blueprint of Amira’s resilience becomes a mantle taken up by each of her daughters in distinct ways. It is especially intriguing to see how the three Vidhur children hold fast to their parents’ ideals, and how they create their own mottos for survival, too.
Written in a sweetly engaging style, Daughters of Empire shies away from the gritty, harsh narrative structure that defines so much of contemporary fiction. Persaud could be partially likened to a Caribbean Jane Austen, underscoring the deepest of issues with a light, graceful hand. If the novel sometimes reads like a giddy comedy of errors, it is worth noting that it confronts questions of race, class, gender, xenophobia and spirituality, from a series of outlooks. The reader will find her assumptions challenged on even the simplest of matters, finding out in the process that sometimes the least refined arguments are the ones most worth having.
Past and present, England and Trinidad, rural country roads and commercial city centres: this is a novel of polarities, of opposite ends finding unexpected meeting places. Persaud’s storytelling is more sophisticated than mere comparison, though; it also considers this: how do we live ‘abroad’, when these foreign landscapes are swiftly becoming our homes? When her happiness is threatened, Amira wonders, “She was living at the close of the twentieth century and still following her mother’s way. But how could you stop the past walking beside you?”
You can continue reading my full review of Daughters of Empire at Novel Niche.
"Readers often expect that stories strongly populated by female characters will be rooted, for better or worse, in domestic issues and an excess of emotion. Though the concerns of home and family play a vital part in Lakshmi Persaud’s newest novel, Daughters of Empire, they cannot be said to rule it, either. Amira is the predominant narrator, yet space is made for the perspectives of other women to shine through: not just Ishani’s voice is heard, but also the voices of Amira’s three daughters, Anjali, Satisha and Vidya. Dedicating itself to the span of generations, Persaud’s tale traces the journeys of these women, and others, as they do battle with society’s demands. Injustices are experienced on a minor and massive scale; these heroines are betrayed, scarred and manipulated, but it is their own sense of community and personal strength that encourages them to persist. The blueprint of Amira’s resilience becomes a mantle taken up by each of her daughters in distinct ways. It is especially intriguing to see how the three Vidhur children hold fast to their parents’ ideals, and how they create their own mottos for survival, too.
Written in a sweetly engaging style, Daughters of Empire shies away from the gritty, harsh narrative structure that defines so much of contemporary fiction. Persaud could be partially likened to a Caribbean Jane Austen, underscoring the deepest of issues with a light, graceful hand. If the novel sometimes reads like a giddy comedy of errors, it is worth noting that it confronts questions of race, class, gender, xenophobia and spirituality, from a series of outlooks. The reader will find her assumptions challenged on even the simplest of matters, finding out in the process that sometimes the least refined arguments are the ones most worth having.
Past and present, England and Trinidad, rural country roads and commercial city centres: this is a novel of polarities, of opposite ends finding unexpected meeting places. Persaud’s storytelling is more sophisticated than mere comparison, though; it also considers this: how do we live ‘abroad’, when these foreign landscapes are swiftly becoming our homes? When her happiness is threatened, Amira wonders, “She was living at the close of the twentieth century and still following her mother’s way. But how could you stop the past walking beside you?”
You can continue reading my full review of Daughters of Empire at Novel Niche.
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February 18, 2020Daughters of Empire, (2003, Peepal Tree Press) traces the journey of the Vidhurs, a young Indo-Caribbean family from Trinidad and Tobago to the UK in the 1970s. Amira, the matriarch of the family, struggles with how to teach her daughters how to be good little Hindus/Indo-Caribbean women versus the highly individualistic and often xenophobic British culture that surrounds them. This novel delves into the Caribbean diasporic experience and raises questions about stereotypes that persist in spite of an immigrant’s high level of education or economic standing in society.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews