Roopa Farooki was born in Lahore in Pakistan, and brought up in London. She graduated from New College, Oxford in 1995 and worked in advertising before turning to write fiction. Her debut novel Bitter Sweets was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange New Writers Award. She now lives in south-west France with her husband and two young sons.
Farooki's delightful debut novel commences in India, where Heena Rub and her father trick the Westernized and wealthy Ricky-Rashid Karim into marrying the illiterate Heena. Heena's initial deceit begets a string of deceptions that twists through succeeding generations. Daughter Shona continues the family tradition when she and her secret Pakistani boyfriend lie in order to elope and move to London. There they build a new life with twin sons Omar and Sharif. Shona remains complicit in maintaining the deceitful tradition until the expansive conspiratorial web of dishonesty and double lives threatens her sons' future. Farooki's tale almost spins out of control but finally remains true to the classical tradition of comedy, and all ends well. Along the way, Farooki entertains with witty language and lighthearted commentary on the South Asian immigrant experience. Readers expecting more lyrical writing and harder-hitting commentary should check out the likes of Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee, Arundati Roy, or Anita Desai, but with this work Farooki joins the rapidly growing ranks of talented South Asian writers writing in English.-Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Lib., Eugene Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Adult/High School-This multicultural comedy of manners stretches from the 1950s to the present. Nadim, a Bengali shopkeeper, comes from a long line of liars. His greatest deception has led to the marriage of his lazy, uneducated 13-year-old daughter into the wealthy Karim family of Calcutta. Henna, this child bride, is a manipulative, over-the-top adulteress. Duped groom Ricky-Rashid achieves his lifelong goals of becoming a successful businessman and finding true love late in life, but there's a catch: he becomes a guilt-ridden polygamist in the process. Aziz has had a crush on Henna since the beginning and takes over brother Ricky-Rashid's role as the caretaker of family land and becomes Henna's lover. Other members of the extended family include Shona, who elopes to London with a distant Punjabi relative; Omar, who is in the closet; and Dermot, who wants Shona to himself. Numerous other characters are witting and unwitting collaborators to deceits, secrets, and even ignorance. Through the comfortably flawed, self-deceptive, clandestine behavior of its characters, this novel achieves a level of human realism that is at once hilarious, intriguing, and achingly cringe-worthy. This is one confection that is as literarily satisfying as it is delectable.-Shannon Peterson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
This rollicking debut from former London ad exec Farooki weaves "an audacious network of lies as elaborate and brazen as the golden embroidery on [a] scarlet wedding sari." Henna, an illiterate 13-year-old Calcutta shopkeeper's daughter, is passed off as the educated 17-year-old daughter of a successful businessman in order to marry her into one of the city's best families. The lie reverberates deliciously through three generations of Henna's family: Farooki's witty narrative winds its way over some 50 years, moving Henna, husband Rashid ("Ricky") and daughter Shona from Calcutta to Bangladesh, Pakistan and London, where Shona elopes and raises her twin boys above a confectioner's shop. Unflinching insights into Henna and others are well done, and allusions to literature and philosophy buoy them up. Farooki pulls off a lightly spun epic tale with effortless charm and more than enough delightful twists to keep pages turning. Even the characters' most unexpected and disastrous choices seem somehow inevitable, and one is quickly resigned to rooting for the wily woman at the center. (Nov.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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