Kuen

A piano scholarship transports sixteen-year-old Kuen from her home in Hong Kong to the Royal Academy of Music in London. Seven years later, the shy student marries a Malaysian-born Chinese man, and the couple returns to Asia.

The lustre of Kuen’s marriage fades quickly. Her husband’s escalating abuse leads to her frantic escape from Kuala Lumpur to Canada. She and her two terrified children arrive in a new land with no plans whatsoever. She figures out how to remain in Toronto, seeks healing in three seminaries, and reinvents herself.

The external circumstances of Kuen’s life are exotic and fascinating, yet her interior landscape is accessible and familiar. Her story—a powerful intertwining of music, marriage, and faith—is about resilience and finding healthy ways of living with the scars from one’s past.