Paperback: In the southern Province of Guangxi amidst the turmoil of the Taiping Rebellion and the Opium War, a woman is kidnapped and her husband shipped out as a coolie to Singapore. Yet from despair came good fortune. Seen through the eyes of one family, this is a moving story of the scourge of opium and one man's plight and rise in fortune in British Malaya.
In her third novel, New Beginnings (2014), Yap has all the assurance of her first two successes and more. A strong story line, deftly rendered in brief and readable instalments, takes us from the turbulence of a China unmercifully exploited with opium by the western powers in Victorian times, to the race and clan rivalries of an emerging Singapore and Malaya. The beautiful and tragic figure of Hua might serve as a metaphor for the suffering sub-continent; and that of her husband Ngao for the resilience of the Chinese themselves.
The refinement and the thuggery of China alike, the bustle of Singapore, and the tropical potential of Malaya in those days are all made to feel familiar rather than foreign, the high emotions to be shared rather than differentiate us. The characters are entirely believable, the degree of background 'colour' is perfectly judged, and the pace seductive: don't be surprised if you find you read this book in one sitting. - Bill Jackson, Editor of The Corporal and the Celestials
About the author: Born in Kuala Lumpur, Chan Ling Yap was educated in Malaysia and the UK and has a PhD in Economics. She lectured at the University of Malaya before joining the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, where she worked for nineteen years. Her last post was as senior rice commodity specialist and Secretary to the Intergovernmental Group on Rice.
On returning to the UK with her family, she trained as a fitness instructor and developed and taught her own exercise regime - a combination of eastern and western disciplines. Her book, Fusion Fitness, was published in 2002 and in the USA in March 2003.
Yap has always loved writing. While at the University of Malaya, she wrote two economic textbooks in Malay and published many papers on small-scale fisheries development. In FAO, she was responsible for reports and policy papers on rice and contributed to the Financial Times in the UK.
After Fusion Fitness, she wrote a novel, Sweet Offerings, which has been highly praised for its evocation of Asia. Bitter-Sweet Harvest is her second novel. Her third novel, New Beginnings, was released in 2014 and won the Popular Readers’ Choice Award for the year. A Flash of Water, her fourth novel, was released in Asia in November 2015 and elsewhere in early 2016. The four novels form a quartet, which traces the lives of one family against the turbulent political, economic and social changes in China and Malaya. Each, however, stands on its own.
Where the Sunrise is Red, Yap’s fifth novel, was published in 2017.
Rating: 5/5
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