About Leela

Contemporary fiction
LATEST: FRESH BEGINNINGS just out from Bridge House 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! Order from Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop, or Amazon, or many other bookshops. It's free on Amazon Kindle I http://www.thebridgetowncafebooksshop.co.uk/2022/02/freshbeginnings.html If you are tempted to write a review somewhere, please send it to me as well! see reviews of FRESH BEGINNINGS
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, go to Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop: http://www.thebridgetowncafebookshop.co.uk/2022/02/fresh-beginnings.html Also available on Amazon, Waterstones and other places - but if you are not happy ordering online, get in touch with Leela

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.

Travels

Leela has a lifelong love of travelling. She began as a two-year-old when her mother tucked her under her arm and climbed bravely up the side of the first huge ship taking passengers to Denmark as soon as the War finished - and it went on from there. As well as living in Nigeria and Kenya in the 1970s with Robin and their small children, Leela’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 she tried! This book is no longer for sale - Leela is re-writing it and is under contract with 186 Publishing.

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A Contemporary Fiction Author

As a contemporary fiction author, Leela specialises in novels and short stories.
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