Half Life A Novel [Paperback]

It's time to stop fighting, and go home. Those were the words, written by a minor but well-reputed Bengali poet, that finally persuaded Aruna Ahmed Jones to exit her ground-floor Victorian flat wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keep on walking. Leaving behind the handsome Dr. Patrick Jones, her husband of less than a year, Aruna heads to Heathrow, where she boards a plane bound for Singapore, and her old life. When Aruna left for London, she was fleeing many things: her recently deceased father, the only family she'd ever had; her best friend and lover, Jazz, and the life they'd tried, and failed, to create together; the complicated psychological diagnosis she preferred to forget.

But after years of fleeing the ghosts that continue to haunt her, Aruna is about to discover that running away is really the easy part; it is coming homemaking peace with Jazz, with her past, and even with herselfthat is hard. With shades ofSlumdog MillionaireandThe Namesake, Roopa Farooki's novel is luminous and gripping.

ROOPA FAROOKI was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and brought up in London. She graduated from New College, Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and worked in advertising before writing fiction full time. Roopa now lives in Southeast England and Southwest France with her husband and two young sons.

1.Half Lifeopens with the line: It's time to stop fighting, and go home. How do the varied types of conflict in the novel - emotional, psychological, political - affect the characters? In what way does the search for home affect them?

2. The novel is told from the perspective of three characters - Aruna, Jazz and Hassan. Which character do you empathize with most? With whom do you sympathize the least? Which do you feel makes the greatest sacrifice for their loved ones?

3. Aruna realizes on her return to Singapore that running away is easy; it is coming home thal£‰