Roma Tearne

Roma Tearne is a Sri Lankan-born artist and novellist living and working in Britain. She arrived with her parents in this country at the age of ten. She trained as a painter, completing her MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. For nearly twenty years her work as a painter, installation artist and filmmaker has dealt with the traces of history and memory within public and private spaces.

In 1998, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, highlighted one of her paintings, Watching the Procession, for its Summer Exhibition. As a result her work became more widely known and was included in the South Asian Arts Festival at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 1992. In 1993, Cadogan Contemporaries, London, began showing her paintings, then in 2000, the Arts Council of England funded a touring exhibition of her work. Entitled The House of Small Things, this exhibition consisted of paintings and photographs based on childhood memories. They were the start of what was to become a preoccupation with issues of loss and migration.

Roma became Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2002 and it was while working at the Ashmolean and as a response to public interest that she began to write. In 2003, she had a solo exhibition, Nel Corpo delle Città (In the Body of the Cities), at the MLAC Gallery in Rome. She is currently the holder of a three-year AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Fellowship at Brookes University, Oxford, and is working on the relationship between narrative and memory in museums throughout Europe.

Roma’s first novel, Mosquito, will be published in 2007, and she is currently finishing her second novel, set in Sri Lanka. She is married with three children and lives in Oxford.

Author photo © Alistair Tearne

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The Swimmer Roma Tearne One of the 20 Longlisted titles for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011. October 2010 Book of the Month. A tale of romance and Sri Lankan politics from the author of Brixton Beach. It... Format: Paperback - Released: 02/09/2010 Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Brixton Beach Roma Tearne Featured on The TV Book Club on More4 on 28 February 2010. Beginning with the July 2005 London bombings this fascinating and enthralling novel draws you in from the start. In the midst of the panic unravelling in London as a... Format: Paperback - Released: 07/01/2010 Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Mosquito Roma Tearne Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2007.Costa Book Awards 2007 Judges' comment: "A compelling story set in war torn Sri Lanka - poignant, exquisitely told and a captivating view of unusual love and survival." Format: Hardback - Released: 05/03/2007 Lovereading Price: £11.24 - Saving £3.75 (25%)