Soft Side of Red Afternoon Tea with Christine Shamista

"I hung onto every word in this collection. It was beautiful, visceral, powerful. An exciting new voice celebrating who we are and where we belong.” - Melina Marchetta, author of the Australian classic, Looking for Alibrandi and The Place on Dalhousie.

'Beautiful and smart and sometimes blood-drawingly sharp” - Emily Maguire, author of An Isolated Incident and Love Objects.

Christine Shamista’s collection of poetry - Soft Side of Red – is based on her experiences living in Sri Lanka, England and Australia as part of the Tamil diaspora. These poems explore her journey of leaving her ancestral home in the time of the Sri Lankan civil war, then living in and between different cultures in England and Australia, where she now resides.

They recount experiences of casual and systemic racism,– and her discovering delight and pride in race and identity despite these experiences.