The Ash Museum

Through ten decades and across three continents, The Ash Museum is an intergenerational story of loss, migration and the search for somewhere to feel at home.

1944. The Battle of Kohima. James Ash dies leaving behind two families: his ‘wife’ Josmi and two children, Jay and Molly, and his parents and sister in England who know nothing about his Indian family.

2012. Emmie is raising her own daughter, Jasmine, in a world she wants to be very different from the racist England of her childhood. Her father, Jay, doesn’t even have a photograph of the mother he lost and still refuses to discuss his life in India. Emmie finds comfort in the local museum – a treasure trove of another family’s stories and artefacts.

Little does Emmie know that with each generation, her own story holds secrets and fascinations that she could only dream of.

'Extraordinary' Christie Hickman, Books Editor, S Magazine

'A beautifully written, multi-generational tale' Ella Dove, novelist and Commissioning Editor at Good Housekeeping, Prima and Red magazines

'Rebecca Smith’s book demonstrates, yet again, her gift for vivid humour and deep empathy' Philip Hoare, winner of the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction