When the Future Comes Too Soon by Selina Siak Chin Yoke

“As Malayan society grapples with the changes brought on by war and occupation, Mei Foong barters away pieces of her existence in order to survive, and rebuild and reclaim her life.

Mei Foong is a hauntingly original character, torn between loyalty to her family and the risk of betrayal - a woman who fatefully defies the constricting conventions of her society.”Īnd from Man Asian Literary Prize-shortlisted Musharraf Ali Farooqi, author of Between Clay and Dust, has come the following praise: “Selina Siak Chin Yoke has created an intensely visceral evocation of life in Malaya during World War II, when a young wife and her family confront the harshness of life under the Japanese occupation and the ethnic polarization it causes. Here’s what María Dueñas, who wrote the New York Times bestselling The Time in Between, has said about When the Future Comes Too Soon: This novel means a huge amount to me, so I’m pleased that the book has already received accolades from leading authors. I devoured these tales without fully understanding their implications, and it was only while writing this second novel that I have come to appreciate how profoundly Japan’s occupation of Malaya changed our country. As a child, I was fascinated by that period and clamoured to hear my family’s stories. For those who’ve read The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds, Mei Foong is the first daughter-in-law of the matriarch in that previous novel.Įvery Malaysian family has its own memories of the Japanese era. The narrator, Wong Mei Foong, who is a young woman on the eve of the Japanese invasion, must find ways to survive with her husband and their five children. The story follows an ordinary, middle-class family – the Wong family – through the three and a half years when their country is turned upside down. In When the Future Comes Too Soon, Malaya is at war and occupied by the Japanese. In other words, every one of them can be read independently – you need not have read The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds before being able to enjoy this latest book! This is the second book in The Malayan Series, but it is a stand-alone novel in fact, all the books in the series will be stand-alone. I’m thrilled to announce that my second novel, When the Future Comes Too Soon, will be published on July 18, 2017, by Amazon Crossing! The book’s stunning front cover is below.

When the Future Comes Too Soon by Selina Siak Chin Yoke