The Cake that was Baked at Home attempts to unveil lesser known aspects of the life of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar who was assassinated in 2005. Told through his daughter Ajita’s memories, stories and recollections by those who knew him, extracts of published media and tributes composed specifically for the book, she endeavours to shed light on facets of a brilliant and complex man. Kadirgamar spent the last ten years of his life in the harsh and sometimes unforgiving public spotlight, adored by some, declared a traitor by others, all the while knowing he was constantly being targeted by the LTTE. A rare patriot, he had written in a friend’s autograph book at the age of fourteen, “How sweet and honourable it is to die for one’s country” (Horace, Ode III.2.3). Fifty years later in the corridors of the Foreign Ministry echoed the same sentiment when he told a colleague, “Since one has to die someday, it would be an honour to die in harness”. Written to commemorate Kadirgamar’s tenth death anniversary on August 12, 2015, the book is also the author’s personal journey of healing and discovery where she poses the question, ‘Do we ever really know a person, even one’s own parent?’