The Formidable Miss CassidyMeihan Boey
The Punkhawala and the Prostitute
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Finalist for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize
Behind the golden façade of a land filled with opportunities dwell two destitute souls, shipped to Singapore in the late 1800s. Oseki, an ingenue forced into prostitution as a karayuki, grapples with being betrayed by her own father and transforms into a monster she can’t recognise. Gobind, a deaf convict from India, serves his sentence as a punkhawala to a British hunter obsessed with killing Rimau Satan, a man-eating tiger of mythic proportions. Whenever Gobind hunts with his master, his butchered memories lurk in the darkness, aching to pounce. When Oseki’s and Gobind’s paths intertwine, they begin to face their inner demons to find their humanity—and their way back home.
© 2021 by Wesley Leon Aroozoo. Published in paper format in Singapore by Epigram Books, recorded by Storyside 2022.
© 2022 Storyside (Audiobook): 9789152198032
© 2022 Epigram Books (Ebook): 9789814901819
Release date
Audiobook: 14 February 2022
Ebook: 1 February 2022
The Punkhawala and the Prostitute
- By
- With:
- Publisher
Finalist for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize
Behind the golden façade of a land filled with opportunities dwell two destitute souls, shipped to Singapore in the late 1800s. Oseki, an ingenue forced into prostitution as a karayuki, grapples with being betrayed by her own father and transforms into a monster she can’t recognise. Gobind, a deaf convict from India, serves his sentence as a punkhawala to a British hunter obsessed with killing Rimau Satan, a man-eating tiger of mythic proportions. Whenever Gobind hunts with his master, his butchered memories lurk in the darkness, aching to pounce. When Oseki’s and Gobind’s paths intertwine, they begin to face their inner demons to find their humanity—and their way back home.
© 2021 by Wesley Leon Aroozoo. Published in paper format in Singapore by Epigram Books, recorded by Storyside 2022.
© 2022 Storyside (Audiobook): 9789152198032
© 2022 Epigram Books (Ebook): 9789814901819
Release date
Audiobook: 14 February 2022
Ebook: 1 February 2022
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Ratings and reviews
Reviews at a glance
3.5
Overall rating based on 16 ratings
Others describes this book as
Page-turner
Sad
Unpredictable
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Showing 2 of 16
Bryan
10 Mar 2022
ConfusingWhile I initially enjoyed the plot of the book, there were an increasing number of instances where I had to reread passages just to get a grasp of what was going on as there was (Spoilers ahead) no clear delineation between past and present, or between what was reality or mere confabulation. Reading Gobind's narrative makes me think of a man straddling the brink of insanity, wherein he constantly fluctuates between the ghosts of his past and the barren lovelorn nature of his present, with a gossamer thin line separating the two. Same goes for Oseki, and a lot of time was spent unnecessarily trying to puzzle out the fact that the author was in fact describing her spirit residing in the tiger Rimau Satan after she had been devoured by it. It was rather confusing when her character resurfaced after being killed with no clear explanation whatsoever.
Nancy
24 Feb 2023
SadPage-turnerInformativeLoved the narration and story brought my imagination back to the days when tigers are rampant in the 40s.
Language and region
English
Singapore
