“In Malaysia, our grandparents love us by not speaking. More specifically, they do not speak about their lives from 1941-1945, the period when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Malaysia, tossed the British colonizers out, and turned a quiet nation into one that was at war with itself.”
That’s from Vanessa Chan’s author’s note to her novel The Storm We Made. The novel takes place between 1939 and 1945 centering around the Alcantara family and told through the eyes of four family members. Mother Cecily is married to Gordon who has a position with the British government which has ruled Malaysia for the past hundred years. In 1939, Cecily becomes friends with Japanese General Fujiwara and a spy for the Japanese government. Their goal is to help Japan take control of Malaysia and to realize their dream of an “Asia for Asians.” It isn’t until 1945 when Japan does take control that they find life to be even harder.
Cecily’s fifteen-year-old son is forced into hard labor, her youngest daughter must be hidden in order to prevent being sexually abused, and Gordon is forced to work in a steel factory. Food is scarce. Cecily blames herself and the part she played for the storm that has destroyed her family.
As the book jacket says, this book is “a saga about the horrors of war, the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake.” Chan wrote this book as a remembrance of what her own grandparents endured during World War II.
If you’re looking for a glimpse into life in Malaysia during World War II, then you must read The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan.
