About the book

“There has been a great flowering. Indian writers—and Indians—are everywhere. Zafar Anjum is our man in Singapore.”

—AMITAVA KUMAR, Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College, New York, and author of Home Products

In this collection of ten beautifully crafted, interconnected short stories, Zafar Anjum engages two commonplaces about Singapore: one, that it is a nation of immigrants; and two, that it is a nation still looking to sketch out the parameters and contours of its own soul. Through Asif Basheer, a newly arrived immigrant from India, Zafar Anjum takes us through the complexities of present-day Singapore. As we follow Asif making his spiritual odyssey through a fast-changing Singapore, we are taken on an unforgettable journey of love, lust, hope and despair.  Written with acuity and grace, the stories in this collection are, by turns, sensuous, tender, funny, charming, heartbreaking and tragic.

“Each of the ten stories in this collection is a nicely wrought piece of a mosaic, and when they all come together, we are presented with a portrait of Singapore as it enters the second decade of the 21st century.”

—RICHARD LORD, Singapore-based American writer and editor of bestselling anthologies Crime Scene: Singapore and Best of Southeast Asian Erotica

Published by Red Wheelbarrow Books, Singapore, October 2012