Simone LAZAROO ... The Travel Writer (2006)

SINGAPORE-born Simone Lazaroo’s third novel, The Travel Writer (2006), uses a sprinkling of Malayan-Malaysian-Singaporean colloquialisms (-lah, aiya, etc.) in telling her story to wonderful effect. As a Eurasian whose family emigrated from Singapore to Perth, Australia, in 1963, Lazaroo has lived close to some unique intermingling of Asian and European cultures and is especially interested in the impact of postcolonialism on Asian societies. A very well written piece of fiction that Malaysian writers ought to read and learn from.

“Just after Independence but before my mother was wise, a travel writer gave her the only dictionary and thesaurus she’d ever owned. My mother found herself in the thesaurus, Eurasian, wedged between half-breed, mongrel and hybrid.”
Simone Lazaroo in The Travel Writer (2006)

LAZAROO Simone [1961-] Novelist. Born in Singapore. Novels The Travel Writer (2006); The Australian Fiancé (2000: winner of the 2000 Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction; shortlisted for the 2000 Kiriyama Prize for Fiction); The World Waiting to be Made (1994: winner of the 1995 Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction and the 1993 T.A.G. Hungerford Award)