New York: W. W. Norton & Company, (2004) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The author's very highly praised first novel set during the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. In it, "she explores such concepts as loyalty to one's family and country, the place of language in culture, and the roles of race, racism and ethnicity in how we perceive ourselves and others and in doing so, she skillfully touches on questions at the very heart of politics, culture and global relations today. Loh narrates the book through the eyes of Claude Lim - a young man from a fine, upstanding Chinese family - who is undergoing a brutal interrogation at the hands of the Japanese. Claude, with his perfect English and seemingly assured future at Oxford, can't believe what's happening. To be mistaken for someone Chinese 'dirty,' 'crude' and 'superstitious' - is the worst insult he could endure, and yet here he is, undergoing torture for being the very thing he loathes." (Washington Post) SIGNED on the title page. 407 pp plus a 1 p bibliography. ISBN: 978-0393057928.