Chitra Ramaswamy launches Expecting in Edinburgh

Posted on April 8, 2016

When Chitra Ramaswamy discovered she was pregnant, she longed for a book that went above and beyond a manual; a book that did more than describe what was happening in her growing body.

Expecting is that book. It gets to the very heart of this overwhelming, confusing and exciting experience.

Chitra says: “Pregnancy was the greatest, wildest, strangest, richest and most bewildering journey of my life.

“When I became pregnant I was shocked at how little I knew about this ‘condition’. I was 34 years old, a woman in a long-term relationship with another woman, and yet my body was a stranger.

“The fact that your own body, the thing that belonged to you most in the world and perhaps the only thing you could be said really to possess, had the power to shock you at all. Time and time again, I heard myself and other pregnant women voice this. I can’t believe I never knew.

A packed audience at Edinburgh’s West End Waterstones, on Princes Street, enjoyed Chitra’s readings and conversation with top literary agent Jenny Brown.

A memoir focusing on each of the nine months of Chitra’s pregnancy, Expecting reveals the secrets of this everyday miracle with reflections on art, literature, nature and life.