Before 1857, Lucknow was a thriving, cosmopolitan city known for its culture and prosperity, attracting musicians, poets, and artists. However, the English East India Company sought to conquer the Kingdom of Awadh, with Lucknow as its prize. Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons follows Amah, a member of an elite all-female African military guard, as she joins Begum Hazrat Mahal to resist the British. The novel explores the loyalty, sacrifice, and struggles of these women defending their city and way of life.
“...the single most important, well-known, and violent episode of the nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian relationship: the Great Mutiny of 1857…”
- Edward Said, literary critic and political activist
Praise & Reviews:
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
The Last King in India; The Great Uprising in India 1857-1858
A footnote to the Indian Mutiny is here enlarged, polished like a jewel and presented in a dazzling story of resistance against British domination. Loss of personal liberty is set against loss of a kingdom in a subtle and evocative narrative. Warmly recommended.
Janet Burroway
Author of The Buzzards, Raw Silk and a Guide to writing Fiction
“Amah, intrepid Indo-African palace guard, and Begam Hazrat Mahal, divorced Indo-African Queen, bear privation and massacre, devotion and loss, each to be fundamentally changed and
brought to decisions they never thought they’d have to make. Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons is a novel prodigiously researched, in which the research is so thoroughly composted into character that we lose ourselves in the rich settings and these imagined lives. A wonderful read.”
Jay Parini
Author of The Last Station, Benjamin’s Crossing and The Passages of H.M.
"I admire the lucid, fluent prose and shimmering atmosphere of this novel, which in many ways recalls the best of E.M. Forster. Her setting is redolent of Indian life, its tastes and smells, its colors and textures. She handles the themes of empire and cultural conflict with huge tact and clarity, and discovers for us the hidden lives of Africans in India. Her storytelling is first-rate. Jocelyn Cullity is a fresh voice, and Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons is a memorable achievement."
The Miramichi Reader
"A beautiful, transcendent story of colonial India, it deserves to be read by those who appreciate strong female protagonists as well as those who would like to learn more about the injustice of forced colonization (and destruction) of cultures that were flourishing in their own right, much like that of Canada’s indigenous peoples before First Contact with Europeans."
Midwest Book Review
"A superbly crafted historical novel with impressive attention to a detailed accuracy of events, Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons is an extraordinarily entertaining read from cover to cover, revealing novelist Jocelyn Cullity as having a genuine flair for narrative driven storytelling. A truly memorable read, Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons is an especially recommended addition to community library collections."
Recommended by the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Available in:
English (Paperback; Audiobook)
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French (Paperback; E-Format)
