A Wicked Old Woman

A sharply observed, witty and confident novel brimming with drama, masquerade and mischief.  
In a bustling British city, decked out with NHS specs and Oxfam coat, Kulwant masquerades behind her old woman’s disguise, taking life or leaving it as she feels inclined, seeking new adventures and venturing back into her past.  
Divorced from her husband, disapproved of by her sons, mistrusted by their wives, Kulwant makes real contact through a jigsaw of meetings: with the Punjabi Punk who dusts her down after a carefully calculated fall, with Caroline, her gregarious friend from school days, who watched over her dizzy romance with Michael the archangel; with Maya the myopic who can’t see beyond her weeping heart, and with Rani/ Rosalind who’s just killed a man...
Entertaining and provoking, complex and playful, A Wicked Old Woman is the story of the eccentric Kulwant and the lives that cross and collide with hers as her past catches up to her and starts to mix with her present. Inspired by authors such as Philip Pullman, Yann Martell and Markus Zusak, this book will appeal to fans of contemporary fiction.

Ravinder Randhawa was born in India but grew up in leafy Warwickshire and now lives in London. Acclaimed for her fascinating and witty novels The Coral Strand, Beauty and the Beast and the short story collection Dynamite, she is a member of PEN International and has also written on feminism, arts, literature, racism and migration. She is the founder of The Asian Women Writers’ Workshop which published two anthologies Right of Way and Flaming Spirit. Ravinder was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Toynbee Hall, St. Mary’s University and University of London.