We are delighted to welcome BBC journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti to Penarth to celebrate the publication of her debut novel Finding Belle, a sensitive and insightful meditation on mother-daughter relationships and the weight of family secrets that ranges from the beaches of Mombasa to the English suburbs.
Finding Belle:
Travelling from the beaches of Mombasa to the suburbs of England and then on to the teeming streets of Kolkata, a powerful story of mothers and daughters, betrayal and madness and a child who must forge her own identity.
A lost child. When Mivvi is young, her mother Belle is a puzzle: beautiful, troubled, and, terrifyingly, increasingly disconnected from the world.
A displaced mother. Belle came to England upon her marriage, a whirlwind romance from the beaches of Mombasa to the English suburbs. But far from friends and family, her life and love affair began to crumble.
A family secret. As Mivvi grows up in the shadow of her mother's illnesses and her father's absences, she must reconnect the pieces that her mother scattered. Can she uncover the secrets clouding their past – and in doing so rewrite her own story?
Reeta Chakrabarti is a journalist and broadcaster who is a Chief Presenter for BBC News, and has also reported extensively at home and abroad for the BBC. Born in London, she was brought up in Birmingham, lived in Calcutta, India, as a teenager where she attended Calcutta International School and returned to the UK for university. She began working for the BBC in 1992 and has been there in various roles for over 30 years. She has previously been a judge for the 2021 David Cohen Prize for Literature; she was the chair of the 2021 Costa Book of the Year; and in 2023 chair of the BBC National Short Story Award. She lives in London with her husband and has three children.
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Friday 9 May
7.30 pm (doors open 7.00 pm)
Belle Vue Park Pavilion, Belle Vue Park, Albert Road, Penarth, CF64 1DB
Tickets: £20.00 including a SIGNED copy of Finding Belle (Hardback RRP: £16.99)* / £12.00 Event Only
*Any book not collected at the event will be held in Griffin Books for three months after the date of the event.
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