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A Paradise of Illusions

Laurie Hashim
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Paperback / Hardback

Anna, the pampered daughter of a maverick Englishman and his local Muslim wife, has been promised the unprecedented freedom to marry for love. Her young life, like the island she inhabits, is perched at the crossroads of eastern and western cultures in the waning days of the British Empire in Asia. The first man she falls for, the son of a prominent Chinese family in Penang, breaks her heart when he submits to an arranged marriage with a ‘backward’ but ambitious mainland Chinese bride. Anna’s next choice seems to be more suitable, a second-cousin on her mother’s side, an earnest self-made man whom her family adores. The newlyweds struggle to reconcile their individual aspirations with the expectations of their sprawling, extended families. The rumblings of the Second World War and the brutal Japanese Occupation transform their individual plights into a matter of life and death when they are thrust together in a desperate struggle to survive. This epic story of love and loss is illuminated by the richly painted backdrop of a multicultural society in flux on a vibrant island that is both breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly suffocating.

Published: Jun/2022

ISBN: 9789815017366

Length: 320 Pages

A Paradise of Illusions

Laurie Hashim

Anna, the pampered daughter of a maverick Englishman and his local Muslim wife, has been promised the unprecedented freedom to marry for love. Her young life, like the island she inhabits, is perched at the crossroads of eastern and western cultures in the waning days of the British Empire in Asia. The first man she falls for, the son of a prominent Chinese family in Penang, breaks her heart when he submits to an arranged marriage with a ‘backward’ but ambitious mainland Chinese bride. Anna’s next choice seems to be more suitable, a second-cousin on her mother’s side, an earnest self-made man whom her family adores. The newlyweds struggle to reconcile their individual aspirations with the expectations of their sprawling, extended families. The rumblings of the Second World War and the brutal Japanese Occupation transform their individual plights into a matter of life and death when they are thrust together in a desperate struggle to survive. This epic story of love and loss is illuminated by the richly painted backdrop of a multicultural society in flux on a vibrant island that is both breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly suffocating.

Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback

Laurie Hashim

Laurie Hashim lives with her husband, three boys, and two dogs in Santa Barbara, California. Laurie graduated many years ago with a degree in economics from Tufts University. She has worked in management consulting in Boston, advertising in Kuala Lumpur, and software in San Francisco. But these days when she is not writing or doing research for writing, she is hiking, biking, and travelling.

The island of Penang has captivated the author ever since she married into a sprawling, multicultural family from this metropolitan mosaic almost thirty years ago. Hashim is grateful to the Penang historical society, fastidious colonial records, and a generation of Penangites devoted to writing memoirs, which have helped her place her imagined characters in their proper time and place.