Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea

A heartbreaking, darkly funny and deeply moving memoir from a fearlessly talented writer

Delivered on the banks of the Mainoru River by her two full-blood grandmothers, Marie Munkara was born with light skin which meant one thing - it would only be a matter of time before she would be taken by the authorities and given to a white family to be raised.

Then twenty-eight years later an old baptismal card falling out of a book changed the course of her life forever. It was a link to her past.

Knowing that she had to follow her heart or forever live to regret it Marie set out to find the family that she had lost, leaving her strict white Catholic parents aghast - why dig up the past?

With devastating honesty, humour and courage, the award-winning author of Every Secret Thing shares her extraordinary journey of discovery to find her origins.