"I was transported by this gem of a memoir, written over seven years by an award-winning, Indian-born journalist, dubbed Trinidad's "Jon Snow". Set in her home nation and in St Lucia, India and London, it's a multi-layered account of a woman growing to feminist maturity while grappling with the ongoing traumas resulting from her turbulent childhood. With many memorable characters, including her formidable grandmother Burrimummy, it also features Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, who was a mentor of her work. Monique Roffey is spot on when she calls it a "blaze of a book".

The Bookseller Editor Caroline Sanderson

"A transcendent memoir about extremes of love and hate, princely wealth, and the rebellious, righteous poor. I loved it."

Maggie Gee

"A blaze of a book, astonishing, colonial, post-colonial, modern and post-modern - a Caribbean feminist #metoo memoir that examines inherited patriarchal damage of women and societal norms brought from the Old World to the New. This exquisitely written book examines familial love and fateful blood ties while scrutinising, with compassion, a flawed patriarch and Magnus too, Derek Walcott. Mathur deftly yokes together parallel worlds, colonial India and post-colonial Trinidad. Both worlds are dark, and both worlds hurt women. A memoir like this has never torn itself out of the Caribbean."

Monique Roffey, winner of Costa Book of the Year 2020

"Ira Mathur takes the reader deep into the darkest spaces of her family history. Relentlessly honest, she tells a story of dispossession, patriarchy, passion and the wounds of a divided inheritance. Moving from pre-Independence India to Trinidad and London, we see the growing pains of the author as she decodes her relationships with her glamorous parents, her beautiful piano-playing authoritative grandmother and her siblings. In a world between poverty and privilege, she is guided by Derek Walcott, and Naipaul is ever-present. Ultimately, she must find her own voice, truth, and reconciliation. A window into a world rich in history that few know about. A compelling read.

Shrabani Basu, author of Victoria & Abdul

"This brave and inspiring feminist critique of patriarchy and gender oppression set in Trinidad-- framed by the delusional greed and grandeur of colonial India and a weekend in St. Lucia spent with Nobel laureate Derek Walcott — has terrific promise as a biting movie adaptation for the #MeToo era."

Etan Vlessing, Hollywood Reporter

 "What marvellous and heartrending crossroads multiplied during the twentieth century. Between east, west, north, and south; many kinds of ancient and untold modes of modern; from 'man' and 'woman' to vulnerable beings of imagination and heart... Over the years, I have witnessed Ira Mathur navigating an all too human writer's life; I have yearned for her to put something of her beauty, wisdom and pain into print. Here it is. Stranger and more compelling than any fantasy, here we are."

Vahni (Anthony Ezekiel) Capildeo, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2019) Winner of the Forward Prize 

 "Love the Dark Days is an absorbing and illuminating work of memoir, which manages to straddle continents and epochs while retaining a tight focus on the vibrant characters who link and inhabit them. It is questing and self-questioning, and admirably understanding the inextricability of the past and the present."

James Scudamore

Novelist, winner of 2007 Somerset Maugham Award, Costa First Novel Award shortlist

"A compelling memoir of the binding power of love and the liberating beauty of forgiveness." Earl Lovelace, Novelist, Queens Jubilee Booklist 2022, Winner of OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, (2012 Commonwealth Writers Prize (1997)

"Mathur brings alive startling episodes from her technicolour life, proving truth is not just stranger but often more compelling than fiction. There is a sense of her burning through her days, reckless, raw, and passionate. For all that, she offers the embers of her life with a rarely found wisdom. An exquisite, compassionate, and necessary book.""

 Amanda Smyth shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize, 2022

The stretch from a Mughal empire ancestry to the arrangements between the Mountbatten set and the Nawab of Savanur, the treachery and false promises of dismantled Empire is all channelled through the annoyed, disinherited Burrimummy. We see Trinidad through an experienced journalist's eyes, Walcott and Naipaul.""

Alan Mahar, novelist and former publisher

"One of the most powerful and exciting new voices in contemporary literature. Love the Dark Days is an extraordinary, multi-layered memoir, drawing threads from the colonial past into a moving, contemporary story of fragile relationships. Ira Mathur is a real find."

David Haviland, editor and writer

Pre Launch.Love The Dark Days –by Ira Mathur

Nehru Centre, 8 S Audley St, London W1K 1HF, United Kingdom

July 6 2022, 6.30-8.30

Launch & Conversations on Empire

Panel

Ira Mathur, journalist, debut author of Love The Dark Days

Andrew Whitehead, professor of journalism, nonfiction author, and former editor of BBC World News and BBC Delhi correspondent

Jeremy Poynting, Peepal Tree Publisher

Launch of Love The Dark Days –by Ira Mathur

Waterstones London - Victoria. Cardinal Place, 88 Victoria Street, London, SW1E

Wednesday, July 13 2022, From 730pm-to 8.30 pm

Eventbrite link: https://www.waterstones.com/events/ira-mathur-in-conversation-with-amanda-smyth-and-judy-raymond/london-victoria#ticketscript

Conversations on Empire

Panel

Amanda Smyth shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize 2022

Ira Mathur, journalist, debut author of Love The Dark Days

Jeremy Poynting, Peepal Tree Publisher

& Judy Raymond, Editor in Chief, Newsday, Trinidad and nonfiction author.

Pre Order Link

https://www.waterstones.com/book/love-the-dark-days/ira-mathur/9781845235352