Run, My Daughters, Run

For readers of The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan) and The Night Tiger (Yangsze Choo) – a sweeping family saga about the women of a Peranakan Chinese family fighting to survive the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and the bonds between mothers and daughters tested by war, tradition and the struggle for independence.

A Nyonya daughter’s fight to survive the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Set against the harrowing backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Malaya, Run, My Daughters, Run follows the Lee family, a Straits Chinese household in Kuala Lumpur, as they struggle to survive a brutal and bewildering new reality. At the heart of the story is Pei Lin, a bright, bookish 17-year-old, whose aspirations for education and independence are upended by war, hunger and fear.

Told in rich, evocative prose, the novel alternates between Pei Lin’s perspective and that of her mother, Kim Neo, a strong-willed Nyonya matriarch haunted by a painful secret. As the family navigates raids, curfews, betrayal and starvation, they must also confront the disintegration of colonial certainties and the fragility of family bonds under occupation.

A powerful tale of endurance, womanhood and the unbreakable spirit of a family caught in the crosswinds of history.