A stunning and heartbreaking new novel from Jamila Gavin, the bestselling and awardwinning author of Coram Boy and The Wheel of Surya.
Based on the true story of Indian WWI gunner and recipient of the Victoria Cross, Khudadad Khan.
The story is told from four perspectives: Lotte, a Belgian farmgirl whose village is the flashpoint for a battle; Ernst, a German teenage cavalry soldier whose grandiose dreams of war lie in tatters; Khudadad Khan, the gunner fighting with the British Army; and the walnut tree that shelters them all.
Jamila Gavin was born in Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, to an Indian father and an English mother. Jamila has written many books with multicultural themes for children and young adults. Since her first book, The Magic Orange Tree, was published in 1979, she has been writing steadily, producing collections of short stories and several teenage novels for the whole age range from six to sixteen, including Grandpa Chatterji, which was short-listed for the Smarties Award and was dramatised for television on Channel 4 Schools, and The Surya Trilogy of which the first, The Wheel of Surya, was runner-up for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award in 1992. Her book, Coram Boy, a novel for young adults, was published to critical acclaim in 2000 and won the Children’s Whitbread Award, as well as being short listed for the Carnegie Medal.
Extent: 288 pages
Publisher: Farshore, July 2025
Primary agent: Veronique Baxter
Film/TV agent: Casarotto Ramsay
Co-Agents: Chinese - Bardon Chinese Media; Japanese - Tuttle-Mori