Thursday 10 March 2016

12. Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan


BOOK REVIEW: Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

Being an avid reader, I highly support novels written by local Malaysian authors because if it isn’t us who support Malaysian writers then who else? Preeta Samarasan was born and raised in Malaysia but moved to the United States in high school. Besides winning the 2006 Asian American Writers’ Workshop short story award, she has also won a Hopwood Novel Award for this moving novel.

Set in Malaysia, this spellbounding first novel introduces us to the prosperous Rajasekharan family as it slowly peels away its closely guarded secrets.

When the family’s rubber-planting servant girl is dismissed for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha’s life. In the space of several weeks her grandmother died under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, left for Columbia University, gone forever.

Circling through years of family history to arrive at the moment of Uma’s departure – stranding her worshipful younger sister in a family, and a country, slowly going to pieces – this book illuminates in heartbreaking detail one Indian immigrant family’s layers of secrets and lies, while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself.

Sweeping in scope, exuberantly lyrical, and masterfully constructed, the author’s debut is a mesmerising and vital achievement.


In my opinion, this tome is rich, quirky and colourful, and 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 itself. Evening Is The Whole Day moved me to tears as I read about themes of uncertainty in love, family and life with all its ups and downs. For those who love to read meaningful novels which carry important life messages, this is just the book for you.

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