Rumer Godden's childhood and adolescence were divided between India (where her father worked for an inland steamer company) and England, where she was educated at a variety of schools. Surviving a brief incarceration at an appalling convent, she later found encouragement for her writing talent at an Eastbourne day school. Returning to India, Rumer set up a dancing school where, defying the social taboos of the time, she taught Eurasians. She married a stockbroker, who abandoned her, together with her two small daughters, after the publication and huge success of her third novel, Black Narcissus. Left with enormous debts, Rumer went with her children to live in Kashmir during WW2, with what hazards the reader will discover...