Global Women’s Champion ‘brings home’ to Scotland her Best-selling and Multi-award-winning Historical-Romantic novel

Glittering launch at Edinburgh’s City Chambers on February 2 for a startling debut novel, Swallowing the Sun, under the chairmanship of Lady Joyce Caplan

CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM, January 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Global Women’s Champion “brings home” to Scotland
her Best-selling and Multi-award-winning Historical-Romantic novel

Edinburgh’s City Chambers will be the scene of a glittering event on February the 2nd, when a startling debut novel, Swallowing the Sun, will be launched under the chairmanship of Lady Joyce Caplan.

The author is Lakshmi Puri, former Ambassador of India to Hungary, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN, and Deputy Director of UN Women, the largest organization in the world which works for women’s advancement.

Swallowing the Sun features the struggle of a farmer’s daughter against caste and patriarchal opposition to achieve her goals alongside India’s emergence as an independent nation.

So why on earth is the series of events, launching the Indian best-seller around the world, starting in Edinburgh?

The links between Scotland and India are legendary. The collapse of the westward-oriented Scottish East India Company prompted the 1707 Act of Union which rebuilt the entire Scottish economy on the benefits of trade and the explosion of professional opportunities through Great Britain’s East India Company.

Paisley weaving, rugby’s Calcutta Cup, Dundee as the world’s “Juteopolis”, and hundreds of monuments in both Scotland and India demonstrate the symbiosis of the two nations because Scots were also key to India’s development.

Though the Scot, John Wilson, had earlier started College-level education in Bombay teaching mathematics, sciences, English and Indian languages, fellow-Scot Mountstuart Elphinstone, who rose to Governor of Bombay, established under official patronage the parallel and more successful Elphinstone College.
Not surprisingly, it is to Elphinstone College that the novel’s heroine Malati is sent, to acquire skills that soon involve her in the great Indian Independence movement.

Comments Lakshmi Puri: “Bombay was a pivotal centre for the Indian Independence movement, for social reform, and the efflorescence of literature and theatre. Scots had a crucial role in the making of Bombay which provided a crucial, vibrant and transforming setting for the novel, working out the protagonists’ destinies and that of India’s rebirth as a nation. Elphinstone College is also the crucible of Malati’s epic love story and grand romance, which is based partly on the courtship letters of my parents. The College produced many eminent Indians, including my own father B. G. Murdeshwar who contributed to the drafting of the constitution of India. Some of my Scots professors also appear in the novel.”

"Key sequences take place in the hill station of Shimla, a location indelibly marked by Scottish architects and an atmosphere that many Scots will be familiar with."

“Indeed, Scots were involved in India’s Independence movement, notably the colonial administrator Alan Octavian Hume, co-founder of Gandhi’s Indian Congress Party, and the Trade Unionist, Keir Hardie. They all drew their inspiration from Scotland, which Burns called “the birthplace of valour and the country of worth”- qualities which enable Malati to “swallow the sun“ - i.e., to achieve the impossible - like the ant in a famous 13th century Indian fable.

“So, bringing my novel home to Scotland seems a natural thing to do.”
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Space is limited, so please contact the individuals named below if you wish to be invited to participate, as well as for photos, media enquiries, and further details:

February the 2nd, 2026, 6.00pm for 6.30pm to 8.30pm City Chambers, Edinburgh, Scotland (Chair: Lady Joyce Caplan); 07894 703697; saidodda@gmail.com

February the 3rd, 2026: London School of Economics (with Professor Karen E. Smith);
07791 248 509; johnloakes.oakes@gmail.com

February the 4th, 2026: The House of Lords (hosted by the Baroness Usha Prashar);
07791 248 509; johnloakes.oakes@gmail.com

February the 5th, 2026: King’s College London (with Professor Ananya Jahanara Kabir);
07791 248 509; johnloakes.oakes@gmail.com

[Book page| https://www.scriptbooks.co.uk/product/58170/swallowing-the-sun]

John L. Oakes
Quercus Public Affairs for Salt Desert Media Group Ltd.
+44 7791 248509
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