The Unrepentant
Short Stories
Insurgency and sociopolitical revolution link those fighting for freedom in Sharmini Aphrodite’s luminous short story collection, The Unrepentant.
Set in twentieth-century Malaya, the book’s fourteen stories share a tone of restrained intensity and subversive determination. Allusions to Malaya’s colonization by Britain and occupation by the Japanese during World War II add historical context: the return to British rule was challenged by labor, anticolonial, and communist alliances, leading to British retaliation and the violent “Malayan Emergency.”
Set in the 1960s, “The Light of God” contemplates a Malayan boy’s longing to become a cosmonaut like Soviet space pioneer Yuri Gagarin. But as the boy matures and is angered by exploitative labor practices and poverty, he joins the communist guerrillas and abandons his dream of being the “first Asian to touch the stars.” In the haunting story “Antipodal Points,” a Catholic priest is unsettled by the fervid political urgings of his Jesuit associate. Within the chapel, a young woman attends Mass, preparing to join communist fighters hiding in the “black womb of the jungle.”
Taut complexities of secrecy and emotion distinguish the interconnected characters. Elderly Aruvalam is a survivor of brutal prisoner-of-war labor enforced by the Japanese; he now works on a Johor plantation, where the “hills running down the spine of the peninsula are soaked in the blue of the evening.” And in the poignant entry “Crossing the Border,” a man lives among exiled Malayan communists who resettled in Thailand. As they gather to watch television coverage of Malaysia’s 2018 elections, the man glimpses the “familiar streets” of his hometown and contemplates his years of grueling yet meaningful sacrifice.
An evocative, penetrating, and subtle short story collection, The Unrepentant captures the political and emotional turmoil behind Malaysia’s struggle for independence.
Reviewed by
Meg Nola
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
