Half Life

Roopa Farooki

Dec 2010 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

‘It’s time to stop fighting, and go home'

Those were the words that finally persuaded Aruna to walk out of her East London flat in the middle of breakfast, wearing flimsy sandals on a brisk Spring day, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keep on walking. Leaving behind her marriage to Patrick, her adoring husband of less than a year, she gets on a plane to Singapore, running back home to the city and the old life she had run away from in the first place. And there she finds her childhood friend and former lover, Jazz, troubled by the pleas of the dying father he refuses to forgive, who has never stopped waiting for her to return.

After years spent fleeing the ghosts of her past - the life that she and Jazz tried and failed to make together, the terrible revelation that tore their relationship apart, and the troubling psychological diagnosis she would rather forget - Aruna is about to discover that running away is easy. It is coming home - making peace with herself, Jazz and those they have loved - that is hard.

About the author

Roopa Farooki was born in Lahore in Pakistan and brought up in London. She graduated from New College, Oxford in 1995 and worked in advertising before turning to write fiction. Roopa now divides her time between south-west France and Kent with her husband and sons. Bitter Sweets, her first novel, was shortlisted for the Orange New Writers Award 2007, her second novel, Corner Shop was published in 2008, followed by The Way Things Look to Me in 2009.