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 of defining home
when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath
people's feet.
