Tale of the Dreamer's Son
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
By the author of the international bestseller Evening Is The Whole Day, this novel set in Malaysia will appeal to readers of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai
In what was once a Scottish tea planter’s mansion in the highlands of Peninsular Malaysia, all religions are one and race is unheard of. That is, until the occupants of what is now known as the Muhibbah Centre for World Peace are joined by Salmah, a Malay Muslim woman. “All are welcome here,” they are reminded by their spiritual leader, Cyril Dragon, who is ignoring news of the changing political climate with its increasing religious intolerance. He is still trying to forget May 13, 1969, when ethnic tensions boiled over into bloodshed. Tale of the Dreamer’s Son guides us from that fateful incident in Malaysian history to the present day. Throughout, Samarasan’s polyphonic, rambunctious prose brilliantly navigates the tug-of-war between ideals and reality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Samarasan (Evening Is the Whole Day) sets a fearless and complex family saga against the social and political upheaval of modern-day Malaysia. Cyril Dragon, still reeling from the ethnic violence of 1969, hears the voice of God and establishes the Muhibbah Centre for World Peace, a utopian community where all are equal, in the 1970s. He is soon joined by single mother Salmah and her six-year old son, Reza. Cyril and Salmah fall in love and have a son, Clarence Kannan Cheng-Ho Muhammad Yusuf Dragon, the novel's narrator, and the family dynamics become increasingly precarious. It's clear from Yusuf's cynical narration—Cyril's a "reluctant savior, asthmatic prophet"; Salmah had reached "the most despairing point of her life" before she met Cyril—that the Center for Peace will not last. When Cyril is arrested along with over 100 others in 1987 as part of the government's "National Weeding Program," 10-year-old Yusuf faces a rupture: "The old me began his slow death while the new one waited to be born." As the nonlinear timeline expands into the near future, Yusuf recounts his years as a teacher in the 1990s and describes living with his mother in 2023. The writing is dazzling and poetic; Yusuf's narration soars over place and time and renders the cast with astounding clarity. Fans of Min-Jin Lee, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Laila Lalami will find much to admire.
