Much of the authentic background detail for the first part of Brushstrokes in Time came through interviewing the artist Qu Leilei. In my second novel to be published early in 2019 the detail is from my own life. It is
Sylvia Vetta Gannet are no longer using freelance contributors so my career as a feature writer and exhibition reviewer has come to an end. Gannet always had good value from me because they syndicated lots of my features. You can
Dwina Gibb and I were on Radio Oxford talking Poems in an Exhibition. Click on the link to hear Dwina read My Songbird has Flown: Dwina Gibb - My Songbird Has Flown Dwina and I on Radio Oxford: The launch
Because of the rise in empire nostalgia, knowing the truth about the brutality of empire is important. Our schools don’t teach empire and most Brits know little and what they do know is coloured by ideas of benevolent patriarchy. In
India's lost emperor Ashoka set about governing India by moral force alone! He renounced violence including the death penalty and this was Before Christ ! Ashoka turned Buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion but his name was cleansed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05b5fdg It’s a welcome change for the BBC to focus on the partition of India. For too long the only history we get is the Tudors, WW1 and WW2. Almost ignored are the Industrial Revolution and the Empire which
Partition voices: British Indians tell the story of the trauma of the partition of India. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08z9p9w For the Madras Courier I tell the story of my Hindu husband’s family’s experience of partition and voice the opinion that the British Government washed
Theresa May is right in saying Islamist attacks have one thing in common : an evil ideology. Silence as to where that ideology came from is to continue despite the government having the facts at their fingertips. Karren Brady on
Relevant ‘Start the Week’ on BBC Radio4 this morning . In a time of invented facts fiction can tell the truth. I understand completely where Miranda Doyle is coming from ‘fictionalising’ her memoir. I have been on a similar journey.
The quest for knowledge is possibly the most inspiring quality in the V&A Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, writes SYLVIA VETTA.