The Great Reclamation
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE AND THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS, ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND...
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE AND THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS, ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND...
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WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE AND THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS, ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND BOOKPAGE!
"Stunning…epic…impressive…It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters.”—The New York Times
"A deep and powerful love story."—NBC The Today Show
"A beautifully written novel. I loved so much in this book: the richly imagined setting, the complicated love story, and the heartbreaking way history can tear apart a family." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country
Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility—something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.
By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up.
An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty
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of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people’s feet.
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Lese-Probe zu „The Great Reclamation “
Chapter OneDecades later, the kampong would trace it all back to this very hour, waves draining the light from this slim, hungry moon. Decades later, they would wonder what could have been had the Lees simply turned back, had some sickness come upon the father manning the outboard motor, or some screaming fit befallen the youngest, forcing them to abandon the day's work and steer their small wooden craft home. Decades later, they would wonder if any difference could have been made at all.
Or would past still coalesce into present: The uncle dying the way he did, an outcast burned to blackened bone in a house some said was never his anyway. The kampong still destroyed, not swallowed whole by the waves in accordance with some angry god's decree, as the villagers had always feared, but taken to pieces and sold for parts by the inhabitants themselves. If the little boy, the sweetest, most sensitive boy in the kampong, would nevertheless have become a man who so easily bent the future to his will.
Perhaps he would have; perhaps this had nothing to do with the hour, the boat, the sea, and everything to do with the boy. But these questions could only be asked after the wars had been fought and the nation born and the sea once thought of as dependable, eternal stopped with ton upon ton of sand. These questions would not occur to anyone until the events had fully passed them by, until there was nothing to be done, all were fossils, all was calcified history.
For now, though, the year was still 1941, the territory of Singapore still governed by the Ang Mohs as it had been for the past century, and the boy, very little, very afraid, still crouched in the back of his father's fishing boat.
Lee Ah Boon was seven, already a year late, as Hia liked to remind him. Hia, now nine, had taken his first trip on his sixth birthday. But while Hia at six had been a boy with plump, tanned arms and strong calves like springs that could propel him over the low
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wooden fence at the perimeter of the kampong, Ah Boon at seven was still cave-chested, with the scrawny limbs and delicate hands of a girl. Despite as much time spent in the sun as his brother, Ah Boon's skin retained its milky pallor, as fine as the white flesh of an expensive fish steamed to perfection. Hence his nickname.
"Bawal!"
At the sound of his brother's voice, Ah Boon sprang away from the boat's side. In the weak moonlight the sea around them appeared as viscous black oil, roiling gently in the breeze. He shuddered to think what could be waiting beneath its pleated surface.
"Scared, ah, Bawal?"
Hia clambered toward Ah Boon, stepping over the ropes and nets that littered the floor of the small boat. He moved with a careless, threatening ease, like the foot-long monitor lizards that scuttled through the tall grass around the kampong. Hia grabbed Ah Boon's shoulders, turning his torso out toward the sea.
"Wah, so brave!"
Hia pushed his brother suddenly, as if to tip him out of the boat. The sea lurched up toward Ah Boon's face and he clawed at the side, letting out a small whimper.
"You know," Hia said. "Pa never tell you everything about your first trip out. He never tell you about the night swim, hor?"
Hia went on to say that it was a tradition that every fisherman's son went through on his first trip. That soon, Pa would stop the boat in the middle of the empty sea and tell Ah Boon to get out into the water.
All around them pulsed the ocean. And up above, blank and starless, was the unending sky. A cloud scraped the thin moon; the darkness deepened.
Ah Boon thought of the fish. Bright-eyed creatures with silver bodies of pure, spasming muscle. For the past year it had been his terrible job to help sort them, still alive in the nets when his father came home. Horrified by gasping, desperate mouths and manic shiny eyes, he had run away crying at f
"Bawal!"
At the sound of his brother's voice, Ah Boon sprang away from the boat's side. In the weak moonlight the sea around them appeared as viscous black oil, roiling gently in the breeze. He shuddered to think what could be waiting beneath its pleated surface.
"Scared, ah, Bawal?"
Hia clambered toward Ah Boon, stepping over the ropes and nets that littered the floor of the small boat. He moved with a careless, threatening ease, like the foot-long monitor lizards that scuttled through the tall grass around the kampong. Hia grabbed Ah Boon's shoulders, turning his torso out toward the sea.
"Wah, so brave!"
Hia pushed his brother suddenly, as if to tip him out of the boat. The sea lurched up toward Ah Boon's face and he clawed at the side, letting out a small whimper.
"You know," Hia said. "Pa never tell you everything about your first trip out. He never tell you about the night swim, hor?"
Hia went on to say that it was a tradition that every fisherman's son went through on his first trip. That soon, Pa would stop the boat in the middle of the empty sea and tell Ah Boon to get out into the water.
All around them pulsed the ocean. And up above, blank and starless, was the unending sky. A cloud scraped the thin moon; the darkness deepened.
Ah Boon thought of the fish. Bright-eyed creatures with silver bodies of pure, spasming muscle. For the past year it had been his terrible job to help sort them, still alive in the nets when his father came home. Horrified by gasping, desperate mouths and manic shiny eyes, he had run away crying at f
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Autoren-Porträt von Rachel Heng
Born and raised in Singapore, Rachel Heng is the author of the novel Suicide Club, translated into ten languages. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the National Arts Council of Singapore, among others. She is currently an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Rachel Heng
- 2023, Internationale Ausgabe, 464 Seiten, Maße: 14,8 x 22,6 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Riverhead Books
- ISBN-10: 0593713044
- ISBN-13: 9780593713044
- Erscheinungsdatum: 29.03.2023
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Praise for The Great Reclamation:Epic for the reasons life itself is epic. The Great Reclamation asks the reader to confront the big things, like love and identity and loss, but it allows us to revel in the little things, too, from the buttery taste of steamed fish to the smooth surface of a rubber seed. It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters. The New York Times
[The Great Reclamation] illustrates the unsteadiness of both the physical environment and personal and political allegiances during a time of overwhelming historical change. The New Yorker
A love story about both heart and home. Time
Precisely and elegantly rendered. Vanity Fair
Stupendous The Great Reclamation is a masterful work of historical fiction that makes the larger sweep of history intimate. Town & Country
"Original and moving...It was not that long ago, in 2018, that Singapore appeared as a sort of flawless Wakanda-like place in the movie 'Crazy Rich Asians.' In The Great Reclamation, Singapore is given the complexity it deserves." The Boston Globe
An exquisitely written, heartbreakingly beautiful tale of love and war. Ms. Magazine
"Defies easy genre categorization, with elements of historical fiction, magical realism, and a sweeping, captivating love story at its heart." Harper's Bazaar
Heng wrings a great deal of emotion from Boon s experiences and relationships. . .skillfully capturing the inner psyche of a Singaporean everyman caught between two immovable worlds. This epic undertaking is not to be missed. Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"[A] story scaffolded against a sweeping backdrop the politics of colonialism, World War II in Southeast Asia, ecology, the inexorable forces of development and modernization with very little of that ever mentioned, instead focusing on the experiences of the characters
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in language of perfect simplicity. . .Like a drop of rain that holds the reflection of the world, crystalline and beautiful." Kirkus, STARRED review
"Heng captures the individual and collective challenges of being human, and explores what a modern country might become after the disruption and displacement of World War II. Every bit of it is a delight." BookPage, STARRED review
"Rachel Heng s moving, mighty novel grapples with the cultural unmooring that accompanies personal and collective change." Christian Science Monitor
"A sprawling, scrupulously researched marvel. At once a coming-of-age love story and a tale of political turmoil. . . Lush and evocative, Heng's sentences render every setting and each scene with vivid intensity. . .nearly impossible to put down." Electric Literature, "Electric Lit's Best Novels of 2023"
"A sweeping story with hints of magical realism." Asian Review of Books
The Great Reclamation is many things. It is an epic of nation-building. It is a historical fantasy. It might be the next great Singapore novel. . .Heng grounds the story in Singapore s landscape with a rich sense of place. She writes of its coastlines, mangroves and waters with a lucid beauty shot through with melancholy. The Straits Times (Singapore)
" [The Great Reclamation] is full of vivid, delicious writing, and the story is addictive, moving across time at a startlingly rapid clip of progress just as it really happened in Singapore. The plot and pacing are cinematic, and with a full cast of fleshed-out characters." The Japan Times
I loved this book, its layering of Singapore's history with a very complicated love story... what a marvelous novel. Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning
A gorgeous novel about love, fate, free-will, and how, in wartime, one person s choices can have long-lasting consequences. The Great Reclamation is as sweeping as it is specific. Ah Boon s story will stay with me for a long time." Lara Prescott, New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets We Kept
"Gorgeously written and compulsively readable, The Great Reclamation is both an intimate love story and an epic historical tale that is sure to be read for years to come. Heng s writing is full of rich, sensuous detail mysteriously appearing islands, the smell of rain on hot monsoon evenings, the fierce burn of a rubber seed when pressed against the skin that mesmerizes on every page. She deals with difficult questions who, and what, are we willing to sacrifice in the name of progress? while never losing sight of the complex humanity of her characters." Julie Otsuka, author of The Buddha in the Attic
The Great Reclamation is an extraordinary achievement - an epic love story set in a world at war within and without itself. Every page pulses with mud and magic. I loved it. Miranda Cowley Heller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace
Through the story of one remarkable boy, Rachel Heng s breathtaking epic of 20th century Singapore shows us the human and environmental costs of a nation s quest for freedom, prosperity, and order. Told with great tenderness and moral clarity, and alive to the beauty and mystery of the natural world as well as the human heart, The Great Reclamation is timeless, timely, and unforgettable. Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers
The Great Reclamation is a beautifully written novel. I loved so much in this book: the richly imagined setting, the varied languages and motivations at play in this burgeoning country, the complicated love story between Lee Ah Boon and Siok Mei, and the heartbreaking way history can tear apart a family. I m grateful to Rachel Heng for writing this gorgeous novel. Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
The Great Reclamation is so beautifully written and perfectly imagined that you follow its characters out to sea, through city streets, into the corners of villages, through every strange quirk of life, until they get under your skin and into your dreams. How does Rachel Heng write about the imaginary and the historical in a way that they are both equally believable and moving and strange? I don't know how she does, it but this book is a marvel. Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway
"The Great Reclamation is a truly wondrous book. In telling the story of one country confronting the forces of change, one community caught between the pain and the promise of transformation, and one young man who must decide whether to live in the past or give it all up for a chance at a different future, Rachel Heng has written one of the most extraordinary novels I have read in some time." Cristina Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans
A monumental epic. A story of an entire nation reckoning with its past combined with a heart-wrenching love story. This one shouldn't be missed. I was spellbound." Nathan Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of Water
Arresting and haunting . Rachel Heng asks us to consider the tensions between homeland and nationhood, and whether progress can be made without sacrifice. This is a powerful, expansive book that made my heart ache. It will stay with me for a long time. Crystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me
"Heng captures the individual and collective challenges of being human, and explores what a modern country might become after the disruption and displacement of World War II. Every bit of it is a delight." BookPage, STARRED review
"Rachel Heng s moving, mighty novel grapples with the cultural unmooring that accompanies personal and collective change." Christian Science Monitor
"A sprawling, scrupulously researched marvel. At once a coming-of-age love story and a tale of political turmoil. . . Lush and evocative, Heng's sentences render every setting and each scene with vivid intensity. . .nearly impossible to put down." Electric Literature, "Electric Lit's Best Novels of 2023"
"A sweeping story with hints of magical realism." Asian Review of Books
The Great Reclamation is many things. It is an epic of nation-building. It is a historical fantasy. It might be the next great Singapore novel. . .Heng grounds the story in Singapore s landscape with a rich sense of place. She writes of its coastlines, mangroves and waters with a lucid beauty shot through with melancholy. The Straits Times (Singapore)
" [The Great Reclamation] is full of vivid, delicious writing, and the story is addictive, moving across time at a startlingly rapid clip of progress just as it really happened in Singapore. The plot and pacing are cinematic, and with a full cast of fleshed-out characters." The Japan Times
I loved this book, its layering of Singapore's history with a very complicated love story... what a marvelous novel. Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning
A gorgeous novel about love, fate, free-will, and how, in wartime, one person s choices can have long-lasting consequences. The Great Reclamation is as sweeping as it is specific. Ah Boon s story will stay with me for a long time." Lara Prescott, New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets We Kept
"Gorgeously written and compulsively readable, The Great Reclamation is both an intimate love story and an epic historical tale that is sure to be read for years to come. Heng s writing is full of rich, sensuous detail mysteriously appearing islands, the smell of rain on hot monsoon evenings, the fierce burn of a rubber seed when pressed against the skin that mesmerizes on every page. She deals with difficult questions who, and what, are we willing to sacrifice in the name of progress? while never losing sight of the complex humanity of her characters." Julie Otsuka, author of The Buddha in the Attic
The Great Reclamation is an extraordinary achievement - an epic love story set in a world at war within and without itself. Every page pulses with mud and magic. I loved it. Miranda Cowley Heller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace
Through the story of one remarkable boy, Rachel Heng s breathtaking epic of 20th century Singapore shows us the human and environmental costs of a nation s quest for freedom, prosperity, and order. Told with great tenderness and moral clarity, and alive to the beauty and mystery of the natural world as well as the human heart, The Great Reclamation is timeless, timely, and unforgettable. Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers
The Great Reclamation is a beautifully written novel. I loved so much in this book: the richly imagined setting, the varied languages and motivations at play in this burgeoning country, the complicated love story between Lee Ah Boon and Siok Mei, and the heartbreaking way history can tear apart a family. I m grateful to Rachel Heng for writing this gorgeous novel. Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
The Great Reclamation is so beautifully written and perfectly imagined that you follow its characters out to sea, through city streets, into the corners of villages, through every strange quirk of life, until they get under your skin and into your dreams. How does Rachel Heng write about the imaginary and the historical in a way that they are both equally believable and moving and strange? I don't know how she does, it but this book is a marvel. Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway
"The Great Reclamation is a truly wondrous book. In telling the story of one country confronting the forces of change, one community caught between the pain and the promise of transformation, and one young man who must decide whether to live in the past or give it all up for a chance at a different future, Rachel Heng has written one of the most extraordinary novels I have read in some time." Cristina Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans
A monumental epic. A story of an entire nation reckoning with its past combined with a heart-wrenching love story. This one shouldn't be missed. I was spellbound." Nathan Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of Water
Arresting and haunting . Rachel Heng asks us to consider the tensions between homeland and nationhood, and whether progress can be made without sacrifice. This is a powerful, expansive book that made my heart ache. It will stay with me for a long time. Crystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me
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