5.8 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 1976 | 2.9/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Similar The Harmony Silk Factory, Map of the Invisible World, The Gift of Rain, The Garden of Evening, "New women" in the late Vi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Scorpion Orchid is a novel by Malaysian author Lloyd Fernando, first published by Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) in 1976 under the Writing in Asia Series. The novel is set in Singapore in the 1950s. It was re-published by Epigram Books in September 2011 under the Singapore Classics Series.
Plot summary
The plot entwines four young men of differing ethnic make-up: Santinathan is a Tamil, Guan Kheng a Chinese, Sabran a Malay and Peter D'Almeida a Eurasian. The four of them were former schoolmates and now attends the Singapore university, all in their third year. The story follows them as they become embroiled with the racial riots in Singapore during the 1950s. A distinctive feature of Scorpion Orchid lies in fourteen italicized passages of varying length, drawn from traditional Malayan texts and interwoven into the narrative.