The Living Days

'Beautifully written, visceral and ecstatic. Unafraid, as Angels might be, to bear witness to the force of entropy pulling us all towards death' -Preti Taneja, author of 'We That Are Young' 


A chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, an elderly white woman, and Cub, a British-Jamaican boy, and drives her crumbling world into heightened delusion. The two struggle to keep their footing as white supremacy, desperation and class conflict collide on the streets of London. Through exquisite juxtaposition, Ananda Devi exposes the tensions of an increasingly nationalistic and polarised metropolis. At once realistic and fantastical, The Living Days encapsulates Devi's daring, unflinching talent and paints an unforgettable portrait of London at it's most bewitching, and most dangerous.


'Prompts a meditation on urban inequality, in which the politics of race and class loom large.' -The Guardian


'Devi is alert to the ways in which social forces, such as racism and ageism, are reshaping London s already complex post-colonial landscape, and her fluid, poetic language memorably conjures a union of two outcasts.'- The New Yorker


'This is a novel of great beauty as well as discomfiting disclosure. Ananda Devi's writing challenges us to reconfigure our own beliefs about right and wrong and to look beyond our own comfortable lives to consider the reality of others.'- Jo Lateu, New Internationalist