This time last year, I was announced the winner of the inaugural Saphira Prize for unpublished writing sponsored by the Women in Publishing Society in Hong Kong. Now, a year later, the Prize takes shape in my new book Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak.
Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak is the result of years of research involving long distance travel to one of the less beaten tracks of the world, Sarawak in the northern part of the equatorial island of Borneo. For my story, I, with my husband Michael, had trekked the hot and humid tropical jungles of Sarawak, combed limestone caverns where myriads of swiftlets and bats hung out, spent nights in Dayak longhouses far from my North American comfort zone, and explored outlying villages and bazaars that had deteriorated into pseudo ghost towns from their heyday of yesteryear. Through the connection of a cousin in Kuching, capital of Sarawak, I was brought to the very entrance of Ghost Cave in a currently functioning gold mine in Bau, or Mau San as it was formerly called, the nineteenth century mining town where major poignant scenes and heartrending tragedy were played out in the region’s history and in my story.
The most meaningful part of my journey to Ghost Cave had been the reconnection with my father’s birthplace and homeland, with my extended family with whom relationships had dwindled to little more than the exchange of annual Christmas cards and occasional death announcements since my father left home for a higher education in Hong Kong as a young man. It was as if an ancestor’s ghost, or two, had intervened to bridge the wide gap effected by great physical distance and prolonged elapse of time, and bring about the strengthening of weakened family ties. In this sense, my greatest reward and gratification in the writing and publication of Ghost Cave has to be the personal journey I took in making up for lost years with my paternal extended family. Unintentionally, yet amazingly, the story of Ghost Cave is a reflection of my own passage of renewal.
On March 28th, 2014, Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak will be launched in Hong Kong by its publisher the Women in Publishing Society. I am very thankful to the Society for awarding me the Saphira Prize which carries with it the publication of my award-winning manuscript “Ghost Cave”. If it seems everything that has to do with the creation of this book has just landed conveniently in my lap, it is because I have been blessed in the course of writing this novel, in my creative process, research, and with all the help from my extended family in Sarawak and my immediate family close to home, especially my ever sustaining and understanding husband, and with my introduction to the Women in Publishing Society in Hong Kong soon after the publication of my first novel Hui Gui, and my continued involvement with them over the years. Ghost Cave is for me not only the realization of a long cherished writer’s dream, but also the completion of a self-imposed mission for myself and my father. Someone up there is looking out for me to bring to fruition this labour of love.
With humility and gratitude, I give you Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak.
Currently available in ebook format from:
www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, and the worldwide network of Amazon online outlets; www.barnesandnoble.com, www.chapters.indigo.ca, and from your App Store as an iBook download on your Apple device.
The book will be available in print format from Hong Kong bookstores and worldwde from the network of online bookstores listed above by the launch date of March 28th, 2014.