Names Have Been Changed by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow | Sing Lit Book Club
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About the Event
Join us at Singapore Literature Book Club for an exclusive discussion of the featured book with the author present. As this will be an interactive session, please come prepared to discuss the book and share your thoughts!
About the Author
Yu-Mei Balasingamchow is the author of the novel Names Have Been Changed. Her short stories have received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, won the Mississippi Review Fiction Prize and been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She is originally from Singapore and now lives in Boston. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University, teaches at the creative writing centre, GrubStreet, and is an editor at Gaudy Boy, a New York City-based independent press publishing Asian voices.
About the Book
Ophir’s tale begins in Singapore, where a petty crime spins out of control, estranging her from home and family. Resorting to false identities and forged passports (being mixed-race helps), she crisscrosses the globe from a Paris-themed hostess bar in Tokyo, to a bustling Chinese restaurant in London, to a snowbound mountain town in Colorado and beyond.
Broadcasting from an undisclosed location, Ophir is funny, prickly, tough, and vulnerable, entrancing her listeners with an irresistible, no-holds-barred recounting of not only her crimes (plural) but also her deepest secrets and regrets. Even as she moves seamlessly across class lines and continents, she grapples with the shock of relentless dislocation, a painful reexamination of identity, and a deep yearning for home. She tries to find comfort in new lovers and ill-gotten luxury goods, but she can’t help attracting trouble, and she soon faces an unexpected, high-stakes choice that could change her fate forever.
Names Have Been Changed is a stylish, fast-paced debut novel that reveals the complicated paths we take to build a life and a home. Filled with danger and twists, it’s ultimately a story about immigration and belonging—one unlike any…
