Curry and Book Club: "My battle of Hastings" by Xiaolu Guo

The event is in two parts. We will be meeting in-person at 18:00 at The Swan in Cheltenham to make the most of their early bird curry deal*. Then at around 19:00, we will seamlessly shift to hosting our quarterly book club. You are more than welcome to join us for either or both parts! Please drop us a line if you would like any further information.

(* previously the deal has required food to be ordered before 18:00, but note the rules could be different by the time we meet for this session!)

The book that is up for discussion this month is "My battle of Hastings" by Xiaolu Guo: A synopsis of the book is as follows:

" 'One of the most valuable writers in the world' Deborah Levy My Battle of Hastings is an exploration of how an immigrant, an outsider and a woman can embrace local and national history. In winter 2021, Xiaolu Guo moved into a tiny dilapidated flat on the Hastings seafront, a room of her own where she could spend time writing away from her domestic duties as a mother and wife in London. As Russia invaded Ukraine, she immersed herself in the English landscape and its past, especially the violence between Normans and Saxons. My Battle of Hastings is a chronicle of Xiaolu’s life in Hastings and a portrait of a dislocated artist seeking to connect with her local environment in the hope of finding a deeper connection to her adoptive nation. Filled with profound, beautiful and wry reflections on war, history, migration and belonging, Xiaolu’s journey into the past completes the triptych of memoirs that began with Once Upon a Time in the East, charting her childhood in China, then continued with Radical: A Life of My Own in search of a freedom beyond her home."
Source: https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/my-battle-of-hastings-book-xiaolu-guo