Gifted

A captivating portrait of a child prodigy weighed down by her family’s high expectations and her own secret desires

Cardiff in the 1980s is a place where maths can get you noticed. Rumis Vasi is the town’s ‘maths prodigy’- untangling numbers and Rubik’s Cubes protects her from the harsh vagaries of the playground and gives a pattern to her world. But after years of her father’s determined tutoring, Rumi finds that numbers are beginning to lose their innocence. India infuses her with a romantic sense of belonging and, as she grows older, and desire becomes a dirty word in the Vasi household, the idea of love is opened up to painful examination.

In a voice that is by turns very funny and fiercely tender, Nikita Lalwani brings us a captivating story of high aspirations and deep longing, and of the sometime loneliness of childhood.