Gifted [Hardcover]

`Fluid, original, clever, glitteringly vivid, funny . . . I couldn't bear it when it stopped. A triumph'

'A winner ... This much heralded novel turns out to be worth the
fuss. It is observant, witty, and stylistically original'

`Beautiful, brilliant . . . Unveils the grand emotions and tiny
details of other people's lives with insight, compassion, humour and
heartbreaking honesty'

'Lalwani's evocation of teenage dislocation is pitch-perfect and
she inhabits her heroine's interior world with tender authority'

'Pinpoints with genuine insight the bewilderment and anguish of a
young woman marked out from her peers'

'Rounded, well-paced narrative . . . Skilfully drawn characters
lead you through this unusual coming-of-age tale that asks: what price
perfection?'

`Superb, brilliantly realised . . . especially memorable for its
sensuous power . . . The searing narrative is unflinchingly and tenderly
written'

'Powerfully evokes the loneliness of adolescence and the awfulness
of being newly away from home and out of one's depth'

'Accomplished and confident . . . Much to admire from the assured
descriptions to the well judged blend of comedy and drama'

`Oustanding. Rich, vivid, fluent and well-paced with a wonderful cast of well-developed, engaging characters and a constantly surprising story line'

Numbers have filled Rumi Vasi's world since she first learned to count. But it was on a trip to India at the age of 8 that her mathematical powers acquired their almost supernatural significance. When she returned home to Cardiff her destiny was sealed: she was now, and would forever be, the town's 'maths prodigy'. At 14 Rumi is firmly set on the path of a gifted child, speeding headlong towards Oxford University. As her father sees it, discipline is everything if the family has any hope of making its mark on its adoptive country. However, as Rumi gets older and the family's stark isolation intensifies, numbers start to lose their magic for the young teenager: she abandons the rigid timetable of her afternoons to seek out friendship and replaces equations with rampant spice abuse. As her longing for love and her parents' will to succeed deepen so too does the rift between generations."Gifted" captures brilliantly the battle to come of age in an emotional and comic hinterland, where histories, arithmetic and cumin seeds all play a part. In a voice that is by turns very funny and fiercely acute Nikita Lalwani brings vividly to life a young family's search for recognition and how that search can break a family apart. This is a story of high aspirations and deep desires, and of the sometime loneliness of childhood. 'Gifted' is a dazzling debut.

Nikita Lalwani was born in Kota, Rajasthan in 1973 and raised in Cardiff. After several years of directing factual television and documentaries at the BBC, she has returned to writing fiction. Gifted is her first novel. She lives in London.