In March 1990, sixteen-year-old Siddhartha Gigoo is forced to flee his home in Safa Kadal, Srinagar, Kashmir. The preceding days have been full of fear and horror for the Gigoos, who have seen friends and neighbours killed outside their homes. They could be next if they don't leave. But they want to stay on, even when faced with a looming threat to their lives. Siddhartha thinks his leaving is temporary and that he will be back home soon. Little does he know that his fate is sealed.
What follows is a long, dark time-a 'camp' existence and a struggle for survival.
Thirty-four years on, Siddhartha chronicles the story of his flight from Kashmir and an entire youth spent in exile.
A meditation on the nature of memory, A Long Season of Ashes is a book about a boy's journey of self-discovery.
SIDDHARTHA GIGOO won the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia) for his short story 'The Umbrella Man'. He has also written a short-story collection, A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories, which was long-listed for the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. In 2021, Siddhartha won the New Asian Short Story Prize for 'Elephant's Tusk'. His short stories have been long-listed for the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize, the Royal Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize and the Sean O Faolain Short Story Prize. He has also co-edited two anthologies, A Long Dream of Home: The Persecution, Exodus and Exile of Kashmiri Pandits and Once We Had Everything: Literature in Exile. He has written two books of poetry-Fall and Other Poems and Reflections, as well as four novels-The Garden of Solitude, Mehr: A Love Story, The Lion of Kashmir and Love in the Time of Quarantine.
Siddhartha's short films, The Last Day and Goodbye, Mayfly, have won several awards at international film festivals. His writings have also appeared in various literary journals.
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