The Orientalist and the Ghost – Susan Barker

Dark themes of colonial misconduct, racial prejudice, and doomed love resonate throughout this novel, yet it is infused with characteristic humor and warmth. It opens in Malaysia during the 1950s Communist insurrection when a young Englishman, Christopher, falls in love with a Chinese girl. The book then moves to 1969 where Frances, Christopher’s Eurasian teenage daughter, is seduced by a Chinese teacher twice her age and drawn into the Malay-Chinese race rio…