The Accidental Malay

by Robles Bahrin, Karina | Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Published 15/08/2024 by PAN MACMILLAN (Picador) in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 320 pages
196 x 130 x 23mm | 224g

Winner of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize‘Slick, sharp . . . a joy to read’ Tash AwJasmine Leong is the heiress apparent to Phoenix, her family’s billion-ringgit company known especially for its pork snacks. When her grandmother, the great Madame Leong, unexpectedly passes away, Jasmine discovers she is actually a Malay Muslim and this newfound identity threatens to upend her life and ambitions.

Finding herself at the centre of a political controversy, and caught between two men who love her, The Accidental Malay examines the human cost of a country’s racial policies and paints a portrait of a woman unwilling to accept the fate history has designated for her.

'A novel both generous and scathing; both honest and nuanced; both grounded in human emotion and engaged with history and politics' Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening Is the Whole Day