“I love reading books, and writing. The practice of using words to find out what I think is when I am most at peace. I love babies, children, my parents, which is to say people, really, flaws and all, even – if in theory only – the ones who try too hard. I love the vicissitudes of a single day.”
Journalist and author
Chitra Ramaswamy in conversation with Colin Grant
Reflecting on Homelands which explores her deep friendship with Henry Wuga and the commonalities of migrant experiences that inform her writing
Biography
Chitra Ramaswamy is a journalist and author. Her latest book, Homelands: The History of a Friendship (Canongate, 2022) is a work of creative non-fiction exploring her friendship with the 99-year-old German Jewish refugee Henry Wuga. It won the Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year and was included in The Guardian’s top memoirs and biographies of 2022.
Her first book, Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy (Saraband, 2016) won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize. She has contributed essays to Antlers of Water, Nasty Women, The Freedom Papers, The Bi-ble and Message from the Skies and recently completed a commission from the Alasdair Gray Archive. She writes for The Guardian, is the restaurant critic for The Times Scotland, and broadcasts for BBC radio.