But she -- and her family -- discover the burdens of fame too, and Jyothi becomes torn between the urge to re-find her original roots and wanting to become that western girl, with that lifestyle, those men, those values. And running through her mind is the vision of a high, light room, looking out over green hills, a man's clear, candid gaze with the memory of a music of enchantment. The Speech of Angels, set in India, Germany and Britain, is a moving, emotional story of a remarkable girl, her loves and life, which looks at not only at the price of fame, particularly for a child-star, but at the pleasures and pitfalls of adapting across cultures and continents. Sharon Maas, whose writing is compared by many to Isabelle Allende's, has written her most magical book to date.
Sharon Maas was born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1951.
She was educated in Guyana and England. After leaving school she worked as a trainee reporter with the Guyana Graphic in Georgetown, Guyana. She later wrote feature articles for the Sunday Chronicle as a staff journalist.
She spent 1971 and 1972 travelling around Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Her travel articles were published in the Chronicle newspaper. In 1973 she travelled overland to India via England, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After two years in India she moved to Germany. She now divides her time between England and Germany with her husband and two children.
Her latest book is Sons of Gods -- the Mahabharata Retold, a new version of the magnificent Indian epic, written under the pen name Aruna Sharan. She worked on it for almost 40 years.
