Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

‘A magical, exuberant tragic-comic vision of post-colonial Malaysia reminiscent of Rushdie and Roy. In prose of acrobatic grace, Samarasan conjures a vibrant portrait, by turns intimate and sweeping, of characters and a country coming of age. The debut of a significant, and thrilling new talent.’ Peter Ho Davies Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding, exuberant first novel introduces us to a prosperous Indian immigrant family, as it slowly peels away its closely guarded secrets. When the family's servant girl, Chellam, is dismissed from the big house for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha's life. Her grandmother has passed away under mysterious circumstances and her older sister has disappeared for a new life abroad, with no plans to return. Her parents, meanwhile, seem to be hiding something away - from themselves, and from one another. As the novel tells us the story of the years leading up to these events, we learn what has happened to the hopes and dreams of a family caught up in Malaysia's troubled post-colonial history. What bought the Rajasekharan family to the Big House in Malaysia? What was Chellam's unforgivable crime? Why did the eldest daughter leave the country under strained circumstances? What is Appa - the respectable family patriarch - hiding from his wife and his children? Through this vibrant cast of characters, and through a masterful evocation of the clashes and strains in a country where Malays, Indians and Chinese inhabitants vie for their positions in society, Preeta Samarasan brings us an enthralling saga of one household and the world beyond it.

"Rich, quirky and colourful, EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY captures not just the sense of a family struggling to deal with its past, but the crazy uncertainty of a country coming to terms with itselfOften funny, sometimes sad, never predictable, this is a novel that announces a unique talent." Tash Aw

"A wonderfully engaging novel, poignant yet comical, about the contradictions and hazards inherent in a modern, postcolonial world." M.G. Vassanji, author of The In-Between World of Vikram Lall

"Preeta Samarasan's passionate, striking book, stunned with light and heat, is full of the memory of enchantment and the enchantment of memory. Samarasan cultivates with brilliance the taut battle between the public and familial being, and the hidden and fragile inner self, trapped in a world of myth and mystery." Susanna Moore

‘An accomplished and magical debut.' New Books Magazine

Preeta Samarasan was born and raised in Malaysia and moved to the United States for her high school education. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where an early version of this novel won the Hopwood Novel Award. She recently won the Asian American Writer’s Workshop short-story award. She lives in France.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780007271887
ISBN 10	0007271883
Title	Evening Is the Whole Day
Author	Preeta Samarasan
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	2008-06-02
Number of pages	352
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.