Rosie Thomas was born and grew up in a small village in north Wales.
After winning a scholarship, she became a boarder at Howell’s School. The school had a strong tradition of music and games, but unfortunately Rosie had no aptitude for hockey and no enthusiasm for Gilbert and Sullivan choruses. She found the library instead … and read, and read. To feel an outsider and to be immersed in books was the ideal apprenticeship for a writer.
Rosie read English at St Hilda’s College Oxford, and for the first time in her life felt that she was in the right place at the right time. She still feels a debt to the remarkable women who taught her, and who encouraged her to think for herself.
After a few years of working in women’s magazines and for a publisher, and by now married to a literary agent, Rosie found herself at home with a new baby son and no job. To write a novel seemed the more promising of the options open to her.
Her first book was published in 1982, shortly after the birth of her daughter. She has been writing full time ever since, and that first novel has been followed by a score of others.
Rosie lives and writes in London, but she is also a keen traveller, mountaineer and skier. Among many adventures she has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, trekked in Pakistan, Ladakh and Bhutan, followed the Silk Route through Asia, worked on a research station in Antarctica, sailed the Atlantic, explored in Chile, and competed in a classic car rally from Peking to Paris. Most recently she has sailed the southern ocean from Falklands to South Georgia and then crossed the island in the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Rosie believes now that her travelling and writing are interdependent, and that one informs and enables the other.
All along the road there are stories, waiting to be told.
Among her other interests, Rosie has been a Trustee of the London Library and of the facial reconstruction charity Saving Faces. She has chaired the Betty Trask Prize.
Her work has twice been awarded the Romantic Novel the Year, and this year The Kashmir Shawl won the epic category of the prize.
She is currently at work on a new book.
Loved your book The Kasmiri Shawl both for the quality of the writing and for the story. There were places in the novel, however, where you describe tensions between Hindus and Muslims as early as the war years.
I’ve spent a month in Srinigar, 2 weeks in 1966 and 2weeks again in 1969. My distinct impression was that the population was nearly 100% Kashmiri as in non Hindu, and of course, in those days, the Indian occupation had not happened and there was no sectarian tension. My sense was also that the Kashmiris who I believe are descendants of the Persians, had little in common with either India or Pakistan and that independence from both was desired by the vast majority.
I look forward to reading more of your books.
M. Doria Shaw
Hello, and I’m sorry for this belated reply. You are right of course that the population of Srinagar and the Vale is now predominantly Muslim. Many Kashmiri Hindus, including the large Pandit community, left at the time of partition or in the years that followed. Sectarian tension was unusual but not entirely unknown in the war years – although people were united behind the Quit India campaign. When I was in Kashmir a couple of years ago I did come across some difficulties, however there was much more feeling about the Indian Army presence and the militant Kashmiri Independence movement. Kashmir is the most beautiful place in the world, as you know, but it also has incredibly complicated social, economic and political issues – none of which will be easily resolved, sadly. But it remains a fascinating and hospitable place to visit, and anyone who goes there will be richly rewarded.
Kind regards – and thank you
Rosie
I just finished The Kashmir Shawl and loved it! a thoroughly delightful read! not everything turns out rosy in life and your novel reflected that so well….but life does goe on for all of us! loved the vocabulary used….so many novels use such pedestrian vocabulary that the fullness of the written word is never truly appreciated!and the political situation is often as described–often complicated and complicating lives–rarely straightforward and sensible!
I have just finished reading the Kashmir Shawl. I don’t think I have enjoyed a book as much as I have this one. The intricate stories and characters were spellbinding and descriptions of the sights and smells took me there among the exotic, the freezing and the desert. What a fascinating history these people have come through. What sadness and loss they are still experiencing. I finished the book on Wednesday and on Thursday morning there was an item of news on the radio from Srinagar about the killing of some policemen overnight. Not something I would normally pay attention to as it is such a regular occurrence in the news these days but this time the article made me feel sadness and empathy for their loss. Picturing the area and knowing more about the conflict made it very real.
Thank you for such an amazing book – when I told mu husband I’d finished it he said ‘Oh, good to have you back!’ Oh dear – I’m already on the prowl on the kindle site looking for more “Rosie Thomases”
Dear Jan, Amy, Marilyn, Barbara and other readers – it’s such a joy to hear others’ memories and experiences of Kashmir, or to learn that my book has brought alive a place as yet unvisited. Thank you for all your comments.
It is bitterly cold here as I write, and I am wrapped up in – yes! my beloved pashmina shawl. Plain black, with a band of hand embroidery at either end. Couldn’t afford the full works!
Very best wishes to you all, and happy reading.
Rosie
Looking forward to my next Rosie Thomas book.
As a 21 yr old in 1951, I joined the Foreign Service of the State Dept and was posted to India and felt I was the luckiest girl in the FS. Two weeks after I settled in Delhi I was “adopted” by an Indian family who helped me understand my new “home” (we are still in touch via Skype). I traveled to many Indian states as my leave and money allowed, even staying in Dak bungalows. My dream was to go to Kashmir but the pass was not always open and my government forbade us to go when there was any trouble. A window opened and in June, 1954, I was living on a houseboat called Miss America with my Indian sister who had family in Srinagar. We shopped at Suffering Moses and met his American wife. Before leaving I purchased a shawl and wearing it brings back many memories. My best trip was to Gulmarg where I HAD to get on a horse (hill pony). This Bostonian almost didn’t but I made it to the top. From Gulmarg we continued over rocky streams going high and higher. I have snapshots of me drinking tea wearing a borrowed Army jacket on the 4th of July. Many years later I entertained visiting Indians at my home and told them of that trip when one gentleman informed us that it was he that engineered the road to Gulmarg – small world. So you have given this 83 yr old senior much pleasure
while reading “The Kashmiri Shawl.” Reading your book felt like I was back in Srinagar with the English and Welsh gals. Thank you for the pleasure you give all of us who read your wonderful books (I loved Iris and Abby, too).
Loved that story. Brought back memories. In 1966 I was an intern at State, part of a Masyer’s Degree at the Maxwell School. We had 9 of us in India, 6 in Pakistan. The war had barely ended so the Pak students had to fly thru Nepal to meet us for our 2 week July seminar in Srinigar. We, too, stayed on houseboats, visited Gulmarg and Kilanmarg (sp?), watched the shikar boats filled with flowers and vegetables, bought all manner of Kashmiri art, because all of it was art- The shawls, the paper mâché , the carved wood. But it was the boat trips sipping Kashmiri tea and listening to the boatmen sing Persian love songs and a special dinner and musical performance on our boats and the magnificence of the Himalya against the Vale! How can one forget!!!
I have just finished reading The Kasmir Shawl, and have to say it is probably the best book I have ever read. The descriptions of the surroundings are subtle and inobtrusive, yet evoke such clear pictures of the surroundings – right down to the sounds and smells. I just couldn’t put this book down. The story is totally absorbing. A much loved aunt of mine was a missionary in India in the 1940s on, plus I have a special interest in fine fibres and creativity, so the whole story had special meaning for me. I had not come across Rosie’s books before, but will be gradually working my way through them all now. Thanks for the great experience!
Hi Maggie – thank you for taking the time to drop me a line. I’m so pleased you liked the book.
Happy reading!
I am a 53 year old from Trinidad and Tobago in the caribbean. I finished The Kashmir Shawl about one week ago but it is still there in my head. The smell of the narrow streets, the characters, the shawl and tea. The book is an absolute delight! I have to look for more of your books. Please visit me if you ever come to the Caribbean.
Dear Ann, very good to hear from you, and thank you for your kind message.
I might just take you up on coming to stay! I did an Atlantic crossing as one of 4 crew on a small sailing boat five years ago, and our first landfall was at port of Scarborough, Tobago, so as you can imagine I fell in love with the island there and then. We had a wonderful holiday afterwards, as all my family had come out to meet me. It’s a beautiful, friendly, fascinating place and I’d love to see it again. Unfortunately we didn’t get over to Trini, and I want to visit there too. So you never know!
Enjoy your reading,
Rosie.
Think I have messed up my request! I want to know if the caracter of Gregory Shoesmith and the stadion names in Sun at midnight is fiction? I am reading the book at the moment and love your description of Antarctica. The one place I would like to visit most of all.
Hi Sandra
I just made up all these names. There’s no Kandahar Station and no Gregory or Richard Shoesmith. I’m interested that you found a Shoesmith Glacier – I must have seen this on a map and subconsciously appropriated it! (This is how it usually goes, I should think).
Antarctica is extraordinary. I have been fortunate enough to go down there three times, and I would go again tomorrow if I could. I put as much of it as I could into Sun at Midnight. If you get a chance to visit, don’t think twice!
Thanks for getting in touch. Happy reading.
Rosie