Tag: fiction
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The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke
MALAYSIA The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke is a richly detailed historical novel set in colonial Malaya, loosely inspired by the author’s own family history. I read it while travelling through Kota Bharu, one of Malaysia’s more traditional states, which gave the novel an added sense of resonance. There was…
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All of Us in Our Own Lives – Manjushree Thapa
NEPAL Manjushree Thapa’s All of Us in Our Own Lives unfolds across contemporary Nepal and the wider world, tracing the intersecting lives of Ava Berriden, Indira Sharma, Sapana Karki, and Gyanu. Ava, adopted from Nepal and raised in Canada, returns to Kathmandu as an adult, working in international aid after stepping away from her corporate…
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The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – Shehan Karunatilaka
SRI LANKA I read The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida while moving between Sri Lanka’s hill country and its coast, between mist-draped tea plantations and long stretches of luminous shoreline. The physical beauty of the country is almost overwhelming. It would be easy, as a visitor, to rest in that beauty and let the past…
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The Ministry of Moral Panic – Amanda Lee Koe
Singapore I read The Ministry of Moral Panic largely in the quiet margins of travel — in our hotel room and on the long flight from New Zealand, suspended somewhere between time zones. It felt fitting to encounter these stories in private spaces. Much of the collection turns on the tension between public order and…
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The Covenant of Water – Abraham Verghese
India I finished The Covenant of Water while we were in Chennai — a city that still carries echoes of its older name, Madras. Reading a novel so deeply rooted in Kerala and southern India while physically in the region added a quiet layer to the experience. The geography wasn’t abstract to me. Verghese spans…
The Peterson Odyssey 