The Others

It is 1989, and in a small Baltic city in East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, three young people from vastly different backgrounds become friends. Armando is a factory worker from Mozambique, Lolita is a medical student from India, and Theo is an East Berliner who dreams of being a writer.

When Armando and Lolita make a grisly discovery, they find themselves caught up in the politics of Theo’s homeland more than ever before. While a quiet revolution sweeps through Eastern Europe, and the Berlin Wall teeters, the three find themselves entangled in a poignant love triangle which threatens their futures.

As the world order shifts, their three lives are bound together in a web of love, lies and fears, leaving each irrevocably changed.

''This is a multi layered story of love, of life under a suppressive regime, of different cultures meeting, of fear, joy and the consequence of secrets. The story that Kalayil has written seeps into your heart and steals a little of it away.'' @LBRBsBlogs

''Each inhabits those years of young adulthood during which the sweeping internal dramas of one’s own emotions can feel bigger than history, bigger than the world. Nonetheless, each is caught in the web of state surveillance whose imperceptible threads they are required to negotiate; threads which tug on their self-consciousness, unravelling it into a more pervasive sense of mistrust. The stakes, however, are very different for each. Theo’s connections afford him the latitude to decline the role of Stasi informant with relative impunity, while Armando, the father of Clara – a daughter born of a brief liaison with a German investigative reporter – is only too aware of how tenuous his position is, how readily he might be severed from his child.

All three are, in their own way, exceptional, but Kalayil is careful to ground her characters in contradictions that leave them recognisably clay-footed, so much so that the reader feels, deep in the pit of their stomach, a fresh churn of anxiety at every potential mis-step''

• Northern Soul Magazine

''Beautifully, wistfully written, The Others is an unconditional recommend.'' - Historical Novel Society

Sheena Kalayil is a critically acclaimed Manchester-based author and teacher. ''The Others'' is Kalayil''s fourth novel, continuing her profound examination of untold stories from the crossroads of history and human experience. Her third book, ''The Wild Wind'', drew inspiration from her own nomadic upbringing shuttling between India, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Kalayil''s debut novel, ''The Bureau of Second Chances'', announced her as a major new literary talent, winning the prestigious Writers'' Guild Award for Best First Novel and being shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Prize for Fiction with a Sense of Place. With a lifetime of experiences teaching around the world, from Nepal and Mozambique to Tunisia and Venezuela, Kalayil brings a truly global perspective to her writing. Since 2002, she has called the UK home, now teaching at the University of Manchester while penning rich, immersive narratives that transcend borders.

A powerful story of passion, betrayal, and the forces that shape our fate, against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Review for The Inheritance:

A delicately written, optimistic and very involving novel, it’s a story that spans Britain, Portugal, India and Africa, as Rita rises from the ashes of a tragedy and learns to appreciate the intricacy and interconnectedness of human relationships through more understanding eyes. - Alastair Mabbott (The Herald Newspaper)