Brixton Beach

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Many legendary nightclubs, like the Fridge, have come and gone, but one of the abiding favourites is Dogstar on Coldharbour Lane, for anything from reggae to house music. After the riots in 1982 more attention was paid to Brixton’s socioeconomic difficulties and its need for a voice.

At first, the war seems safely remote from Alice's blissful childhood. But intimations of the conflict begin to infiltrate; first when Alice is discriminated against at school for having a Tamil father; then when her mother loses her baby due to the wilful negligence of a Sinhalese doctor. The family head for Britain, where the Fonsekas' marriage crumbles as Alice's father joins a radical sect which supports the Tigers, and her mother slips into dementia, crafting cardboard coffins and dressing a collection of dolls in her dead baby's clothes.After which, you’ll be ready to salsa the night away to Cuban beats in the covered club area, inspired by the legendary Havana bar, El Floridita… Bianca 11: ‘Maybe more girls are getting into it because of the Olympics and also their friends doing it more.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Street food vendors from Brixton Village offer an eclectic international menu, with something to suit every taste. A dose of the real London, Brixton Market trades seven days a week from 08:00-19:00. The market is anchored on the pedestrianised Electric Avenue, but spills onto adjoining arcades that were built to provide permanent spaces for stallholders in the 20s and 30s.The HMT Empire Windrush was the ship that brought the country’s first immigrants from the Caribbean in 1948. After arriving they were given temporary housing a few minutes away on foot on Coldharbour Lane. The huts are heated and the rest of the garden is covered with heaters dotted around, so this is a garden that’s perfect no matter the weather! Brixton has always had pulsating nightlife, but since the 90s has come through as one of London’s best places to go out.

Her debut novel, Mosquito, featured an exiled Sri Lankan writer returning to the country and falling in love with a 17-year-old artist. Of all Tearne's work, this was the book that most directly engaged with the violence of the civil war, particularly the Tamil Tigers' deployment of female suicide bombers, who descended from the north like mosquitoes "but, unlike the mosquitoes, were full of a new kind of despair and frightening rage".

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A large range of beers on tap and a resident kitchen by White Men Can’t Jerk makes this a real destination on a sunny afternoon.

These are some of the largest murals in London and nearly all have been preserved and are restored every few years.Barrio is also one of the best places to go for bottomless brunch in Brixton, which always improves a bar in my books. The paintings are labelled on Google Maps, so you can take a tour through Brixton’s not so distant past.