Amma – Saraid de Silva

Description

Author: Saraid de Silva
Publisher: Moa Press (2024)
ISBN: 978-1-991080-61-2 (softback)

In brief

A richly imagined and emotionally charged debut novel that spans decades, cultures, and continents. Amma is an exploration of intergenerational trauma, maternal love, and the lives shaped — and sometimes shattered — by silence.

About the book

Amma follows the lives of three generations of women as they navigate the complex intersections of culture, family, migration, and identity. At its core is Josephina, a Sri Lankan woman whose early life is shaped by the weight of expectation and shame.

From Singapore in 1951, where Josephina is locked in a room by the father of the boy she’s betrothed to, to Aotearoa in 1984, where she flees with her children and secrets in tow, to London in 2018, where her daughter Siri must reckon with the past, Amma builds a story out of silence, pain, and small acts of resistance.

The novel moves between women and generations, threading through the cultural dislocation of immigration, the politics of gender, and the complexities of motherhood. De Silva explores the nuances of identity — what it means to carry ancestral memory and to raise a family across borders and time.

With a lyrical style and unflinching honesty, Amma is both a love letter and a reckoning. It is a book about who we come from, what we inherit, and what we choose to carry forward.

Reviewer praise

“Gorgeous, transporting, powerful. This will be one of the big novels of the year.” — The Spinoff

“The story crosses decades, continents and generations. Bright, love and laughter-filled, with secret shocks, secrets and surprises.” — New Zealand Listener

“A book as shocking and revelatory as any family secret. You will never forget it.” — Chris Tse, New Zealand Poet Laureate

“Raw, precise and generous. One of the most important New Zealand debuts of the decade.” — Unity Books staff pick

“A modern Kiwi-Gothic tale of ghosts, grief and immigrant daughters. Brilliant.” — Goodreads reviewer