Description

Mona Dash traces the intricate landscapes of identity, belonging, and human connection with clarity, lyricism and emotional depth. The first part charts our inner terrain by exploring memory, language, and the shifting borders of selfhood. The second part examines how the self is shaped and reshaped in relation to others: in love and loss, in intimacy and estrangement, in family and society. Whether navigating the dislocations of diaspora or the quiet revelations of everyday life, Dash writes with a voice that is both intimate and expansive. She invites the reader to walk alongside her, to pause at key moments along the way to revisit and reimagine parts of her own story.

Surprising, observant, contemporary — and full of care.  — Tony White

Bold, unapologetic and distinctive; in a voice that will resonate with you long after you have read them. — Dr Bashabi Fraser

A voice at once intimate and expansive, speaking through turmeric-stained memories, prowling silences, and the engulfing ambiguities of politics. — Yogesh Patel

An engaging exploration of her world. — Shanta Acharya

Dash writes with an openness of heart. — Sudeep Sen

Dash has an enviable gift as a poet: taking the grandest of subjects, like migration or grief, and making them tangibly, viscerally real. — Rishi Dastidar

Mona Dash is an award-winning author based in London. Her work includes the memoir, A Roll of the Dice, the short story collection, Let Us Look Elsewhere, the novel, Untamed Heart, and the poetry collections, A Certain Way and Dawn Drops. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, included in Best British Short Stories, and published in more than thirty-five anthologies. She holds an MA and MPhil in Creative Writing and has been listed in Tagore Literary Prize, SI Leeds, Novel London, Bristol Short Story and many more. Alongside her writing, she has built a career in business and technology. She is represented by Portobello Literary Agency. More details at www.monadash.net. Follow on Instagram at monadash_

          FROM THE BOOK

Migrant Dilemma

Which country will I worry for
Which country should I cry for
The one I left, always home
The one I came to, forever home
If turmoil happens on every shore
Which one should I think about more?
Mourning in the morning
Or night time worrying
All over the world
A single narrative winning

And where did you all go
You poets and painters and singers
You asked us to imagine
And you left us asunder

Turmeric

On shop shelves, flavours of peach and turmeric
in little Kefir shots
Cranberry seeds and turmeric, masques in recyclable pots

Turmeric tastes on the tongue, lingering in infinite swirls
like jazz, renaissance, the beat. A turmeric rage grows
in homes, health shops, the patents, the recipes, lotions
on skin, turmeric in all its fine avatars

Somewhere, they love yellow milk, drink an aphrodisiac in a tall glass
team fish soft in thin gravy, liquid gold on shining white rice
and brides apply a creamy yellow paste wanting to look fair

But I remember
my mother’s fingers, her tiny nails
bitten to the quick,
mixing fish heads, pumpkin flowers
turmeric stains on the nail bed and folds

Yellow stains left on handles and plates and clothes
like on this scarf; her fingertips, golden dots,
from far-away home.

The Waiting

Of all the gifts you have given me
It is this silence
I will remember you by
Solid bark-like, roots deep in
immovable ocean rocks
eroding gently or not at all
Oizys, daughter of Nyx
stands sentinel, howls nights