Suneeta Peres da Costa

Shortlisted 2000 Nita Dobbie Award

An enchanting, magical-realist coming-of-age story about an unconventional childhood. Mina Pereira longs to be normal, and it's no wonder-with barometric antennae wired to her brain she feels like an outcast. Her overwhelmingly precocious sister, Deepa, who's read all of Dostoevsky by the time she is eight years old, and her younger sister, Shanti, painfully normal beyond reproach, don't help matters either. When an illness leaves Mina's mother barren and literally roosting in trees, Mina finds solace in the special bond she shares with her father. But as her beloved father escapes to the basement of their house to get away from his increasingly crazy wife, madness takes hold of Mina's family, and the house they live in falls into chaotic disrepair-until Dad tinkers one time too many with disastrous results. Through all of the heartache of Mina's childhood, she comes to an understanding about love and family-with maturity, clarity and ultimately, a deep humanity.

"A febrile and very funny debit novel, a coming-out tale peppered with plausible absurdities and choppy eccentricity [...]. Throughout, Suneeta Peres da Costa writes beautifully on the ebb and flow of familial relationships and the intensity of childhood friendships", The Times

"[An] effervescent debut novel", Editors' Choices, Village Voice Literary Supplement

"Homework is an ambitious piece of work, examining familial disintegration, Goan-Australian heritage, Catholic guilt, and most of all, desire for belonging and acceptance... a novel that is eloquent as it is poignant", The Age

"Mina Pereira has a genius, off-the-rails older sister and multicultural home life that combines Catholicism, Goan roots and Australian suburbia. Homework traces her childhood – stranger than most, but anchored in familiar territory: pre-teen angst, sibling weirdness and parental embarrassment. Beautifully constructed and artfully written", MINX *****

"Peres da Costa's [...] writing is astonishingly mature, her blend of bright humor and raw pain reminiscent of Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum and of early Ian McEwan. An extraordinary debut infused with Goan spice", Anna Davis

"[Mina's] story is told with such tenderness, humour and love that this household begins to seem as real as your own", Times Metro

"It's a captivating read chronicling the idiosyncrasies of family life with aching pathos and magnificent prose", Occasions

"Charming, funny and poignant", Observer

"An illuminating look at love, human frailty, and forgiveness", Library Journal

"Peres da Costa is a writer with a vision [...] and it's that which makes Homework such a delicious read [...] there's something lovely about its wild leaps of language, the grand scale of its author's ambition, that makes it irresistible", The Sydney Morning Herald

"[F]rom Mina's tiny, disintegrating family unit flare large themes treated with tender perceptiveness: loneliness, madness, personal history. And also the pain of growing up", Who

"Following the tradition of such writers as Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Shani Mootoo comes Suneeta Peres da Costa, with Homework. A wonderful, charming and eccentric novel", The Bookseller, UK

"Mina's voice propels [...] this talented young Australian's story forward with unconventional wit, energy and depth of feeling", Publisher's Weekly

"[T]he author finds an outlet for humour in Mina's limited understanding of the world around her. She truly captures the curiosity and imagination that accompany childhood [...] an endearing novel, not only about Mina and her family, but also about the essence of childhood", Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Suneeta Peres da Costa has already been compared favourably with Arundhati Roy and Homework is an enjoyable, easy read, full of memorable characters and situations", The Big Issue, UK

"[A] bitter-sweet coming-of-age novel rich in imagination", Big Issue, Australia

"Protagonist Mina Pereira's voice is unique: neither childlike nor grownup, but instead by turns gravely articulate, wildly poetic, and hilariously original [...]. Peres da Costa has given us a haunting and magical vision of childhood", Austin Chronicle

"An exquisite first novel [...].With a touch of magical realism, clever insight and humour, da Costa paints a lush portrait of Mina's childhood and her unconventional family. A poignant, imaginative coming-of-age story", Readings Bookletter

"In Peres da Costa's deeply affecting debut [...] the novel's greatest triumph is Mina: highly articulate but never false to her adolescent origins, this spirited narrator will draw readers in with her humor and good heart", The Booklist Reader, Chicago

"Peres da Costa's book captures a steep and catastrophic decline in family life with many deft and subtle touches [...]. Homework is a valiant book about difficult subjects written with sensitivity and verve", Sunday Express

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