Here is the unfolding of a small Malaysian town, whose history mirrors the story of a nation. At once sweeping and intimate, After Long Rainy Afternoons pulls a fine thread through momentous events and the personal stories of her people, weaving them together to create a tapestry of past, present and future.
Beginning with an exploration of its landscape, After Long Rainy Afternoons takes you on a journey from the early times to the transformation of Larut into Taiping during the tin-mining, colonial era, the period of the Second World War and subsequent years into the present.
Here are the Chinese kapitans, a charcoal kiln owner, the descendant of Perak’s exiled chieftain, the fifth generation chee cheong fun vendor, the banker turned grocer, the antique dealer whose stories are intertwined with the Taiping-born author’s experiences. They are amongst the cast of people who made the Taiping of yesterday and shape her future. It is a human story as perennial as the rains that curtain her landscape, as old as the hills that hold her within their embrace.
