Loh
2006 Shortlist

Breaking the Tongue

ABOUT
THE BOOK

This brilliant novel chronicles the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. Central to the story is one Chinese family: Claude, raised to be more British than the
British and ashamed of his own heritage; his father, Humphrey, whose Anglophilia blinds him to possible defeat and his wife’s dalliances; and the redoubtable Grandma Siok, whose sage advice falls on deaf ears. With penetrating observation, Vyvyane Loh unfolds the coming-of-age story of a young man and a nation, a story that deals with myth, race, and class, with the ways language shapes perceptions, and with the intrigue and suffering of war.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Vyvyane
Loh

Vyvyane Loh was born in Malaysia and brought up in Singapore.   Dr. Vyvyane Loh graduated Magna Cum Laude from CAS with majors in Biology and Classical Languages and Literature, and subsequently graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine. Eight years later she received an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College.  Dr. Loh was awarded the Bunting/Radcliffe Fellowship in Fiction in 2006, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction in 2008, and was shortlisted for the 2006 international IMPAC Award in Literature for her debut novel, Breaking the Tongue.

Vyvyane Loh was born in Malaysia and brought up in Singapore.   Dr. Vyvyane Loh graduated Magna Cum Laude from CAS with majors in Biology and Classical Languages and Literature, and subsequently graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine. Eight years later she received an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College.  Dr. Loh was awarded the Bunting/Radcliffe Fellowship in Fiction in 2006, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction in 2008, and was shortlisted for the 2006 international IMPAC Award in Literature for her debut novel, Breaking the Tongue.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
17/06/2004
Country
Malaysia, United States
Original Language
English
Author
Publisher
W. W. Norton

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