As part of the Mayfair Times Literary Festival, on Monday 3 July 2023 award-winning presenter Anita Rani chatted to Curzon PR founder Farzana Baduel about her new book Baby Does A Runner (Zaffre). Baby is fed up with her job and her colleagues, her love life is permanently casual, she’s grieving for her dad and if her mother and the aunties don’t stop asking her when she’s going to settle down and start having babies, she might just lose it. When Baby finds some love letters between her grandfather and someone who is very clearly not Baby’s Nana, she needs to know more. She’s going to go to India, find out why her family left, find out more about the mysterious woman and find out more about herself. What better time to do a runner?
An RTS award-winning broadcaster with a career spanning nearly 20 years, Anita Rani is a familiar face on British television. She is a lead presenter on BBC One’s Countryfile and one of the main hosts on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, as well as covering numerous popular slots for BBC Radio 2. In July 2021, Anita published her memoir The Right Sort of Girl and July 6 2023 will see her debut her first fiction novel Baby Does A Runner. In March 2023, Anita was installed as the new chancellor for the University of Bradford.
Baby Does A Runner: the debut novel from Anita Rani
Publisher: Zaffre (20 July 2023)
Language: English
Hardcover : 336 pages
ASIN : B0BG7M5DT4
ISBN-13 : 978-1838779405
ISBN-13 : 978-1838779412
Guide Price: £7.99 – Kindle Edition | £11.99 – Hardcover | £18.44 – Paperback
Click to buy Kindle Edition | Hardcover | Paperback
Baby Saul has had it with just about everything. She’s fed up with her job and her colleagues, her love life is permanently casual, and underpinning everything is the recent grief of losing her much-loved dad. Oh, and if her mother and the aunties don’t stop asking her when she’s going to settle down and start having babies, Baby might just lose it.
When she finds some love letters between her grandfather and someone who is very clearly not her grandmother, Baby realises that she needs to know more. She heads to India to do some detective work on this mysterious other woman and to find out a bit more about herself along the way. What she doesn’t bargain for is Sid, her guide (and unwilling driver) being annoyingly handsome with a knack for asking Baby the sort of questions that force her to look at what she really wants out of life.
About the Mayfair Times Literary Festival 2023
Supported by Auriens Chelsea and Montblanc, the third edition of the Mayfair Times Literary Festival ran from June 22 to July 5 and celebrated the written word with a packed programme of talks, walks, quizzes, cocktails nights, theatre events, panel discussions, and much more. Held at a host of local venues across Mayfair, Marylebone, St James’s, Belgravia and Chelsea, the festival gave guests the chance to share the company of bestselling authors and cultural icons.
Selma Day, editor of Mayfair Times and founder of the Mayfair Times Literary Festival said, “What sets London apart from other global cities is its rich arts and cultural scene and we would like to play our part in celebrating this. We were excited to see the festival hosted series of diverse and inclusive events across venues in Mayfair and beyond, and injected some heart and soul back into an area that has been the centre of the literary community for hundreds of years.”