For subscribers
BOOK BOX
Review: 1960s Sembawang depicted through ordinary lives
In this edition of Book Box, The Sunday Times reads up on neighbourhoods and the people who live in them, from the meta-cinematic Chinatown of National Book Award winner Charles Yu to Sembawang in the 1960s
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Author Kamaladevi Aravindan with her daughter and translator Anitha Devi Pillai.
PHOTO: ANITHA DEVI PILLAI
At the end of her author's note, Kamaladevi describes the novel as her attempt to capture, among other things, "the life experiences of many from my soil".
And she has pulled it off, telling in riveting fashion the stories of Tamil and Malayalee men and women in 1960s Sembawang and conjuring up the texture of their lived experiences.
