"Plastic Emotions renders the life of Minnette de Silva with the elegance of one of her own constructions. Navigating mass and void, light and shadow, the intersecting power dynamics she encountered as an Asian woman architect pushing for modernity, and a fledgling who fell for Le Corbusier. Pinto s writing is wise and evocative, unearthing a story so long shamefully neglected." -Olivia Sudjic, author of Sympathy

"An elegant, elegiac book; its most piercing moments come in Pinto's dissection of the unequal love affair between a superlatively talented woman and a monstrous male 'genius'. It is a devastating deconstruction of power, told by a fine writer with an admirably cool eye." Preti Taneja, Desmond Elliot winning author of We That Are Young

"Shiromi Pinto has shone a timely light on a talented, progressive architect too long neglected and produced an imaginative novel. An absorbing story of love and art offering surprising glimpses of once-celebrated figures enjoying a second life in a deftly evoked cosmopolitan mid-century era."

Shiromi Pinto's debut, Trussed, was published by Serpent's Tail in 2006. She has written short stories for BBC Radio 4, the Victoria & Albert Museum and opendemocracy.net. Born in London and raised in Montreal, she works full-time at Amnesty International in London.

---