Rachel Heng – författare

Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility-something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love. By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up. An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people's feet.

''An extraordinary achievement . . . Every page pulses with mud and magic'' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace''A monumental epic . . . I was spellbound'' Nathan Harris, author of The Sweetness of Water''Ah Boon''s story will stay with me for a long time'' Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept''Alive to the beauty and mystery of the natural world as well as the human heart'' Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers