About Leela
Contemporary fiction
LATEST: Bridge House are bringing out a collection of Leela's short stories in 2022:
FRESH BEGINNINGS
An intriguing mixture of stories, all in Leela Dutt’s inimitable style – something here for everyone, and beautifully illustrated by Kate Attfield.Some are short and funny, some poignant – widows faced with losing their grandchildren, a daughter burying her father and dealing with a domineering mother. One endearing narrator is not human at all but still strikes a chord with us. Time travellers visit Hans Andersen’s Copenhagen; a young German boy is welcomed by some but by no means all in Hertfordshire just after the war. Perilous adventures in a hire car in the south of France are described by a lad who is unaware that at the very moment he’s telling us about his family holiday, London is under attack - a story first published by Bridge House in the anthology On This Day. A young Japanese car manufacturer encounters the strange people of the South Wales Valleys - and their grandfather who was a prisoner of war in Burma. Finally the life story of a Quaker celebrating her ninetieth birthday at the end of the century.Leela Dutt’s collection Fresh Beginnings will warm your heart and stay in your mind – it might even make you laugh!
GET IN TOUCH IF YOU HOPE TO BUY THIS BOOK AS SOON AS IT COMES OUT: shamimeolive@gmail.com
For Leela's books click here
and for a few book reviews here
CURRENT WORK FOR SALE
Leela Dutt has written a wide range of contemporary fiction novels and short stories over the years. Raised in Golders Green by an Indian father and a Danish mother, she is an outsider. Living all of her adult life in Cardiff, Wales, she has been married to the philosopher Robin Attfield for 55 years - (which turns out to be Emerald: who knew?) and they have three children, seven grandchildren of whom six survive, and one great-granddaughter, Zara, who is pictured in the Gallery wearing her Black Lives Matter tee-shirt. Leela is a longstanding member of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Seen here, she is signing books on a day when she was excited that Wales was about to play...
TO ORDER BOOKS, GO TO SHOP
Or if you want to order the new collection, FRESH BEGINNINGS, email Leela to let her know: shamimeolive@gmail.com
Education and Experience
After grammar school and reading history at Oxford, Leela briefly worked as a teacher. She then had a job selling dress fabrics in a snooty up-market Cardiff store, whose male manager complained about her untidy appearance (“Well, I was pregnant at the time, but all the same...”)
She later wrote for a local paper, then after achieving a degree in computing in her forties, she set up and managed an online database about housing research at Cardiff University. Leela also worked as a proof-reader and sub-editor for the Big Issue Cymru and wrote several book reviews for them.
She later wrote for a local paper, then after achieving a degree in computing in her forties, she set up and managed an online database about housing research at Cardiff University. Leela also worked as a proof-reader and sub-editor for the Big Issue Cymru and wrote several book reviews for them.
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Travels
Leela has a lifelong love of travelling. As well as living in Nigeria and Kenya in the 1970s with Robin and their small children, she’s been inspired by her experiences in various places since, including Beijing, California, Lesotho and Reykjavik. She has taken her own children to her late father’s home in Kolkata, where his family has lived for more than three centuries. Leela also delights in keeping up with the younger generation of her late mother’s family in Copenhagen. In the Gallery on this website you will find photos of both the Danish and the Indian families.
Fiction
Inspired by her travels and life experience, Leela’s fiction covers a range of subjects, from the Peace Movement in the 1980s (Rubik’s Cube) to artificial intelligence and the 20th-century history of Indian and German-Jewish families (Mathison). Kingfisher Blue is a collection of short stories, and Bridge House is publishing another collection next year, entitled Fresh Beginnings. Only a Signal Shown was inspired by a friend who said it was a pity her fiction wasn't as good as the marvellous letters she always wrote his family when she went abroad to places like India, Rome, South Africa, Nigeria, Lesotho, Iceland, the USA... and so on. Well I tried!
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Useful Links
A Contemporary Fiction Author
As a contemporary fiction author, Leela specialises in novels and short stories.