White Hibiscus
By Leela Devi Panikar
Cover design by Shanta Ranee and Esina Ranee
Book layout by Adrian Cheah
This simple novel portrays depths of human relationships. As the novel progresses, we get to meet fascinating characters with interesting identities. The author shows intense empathy. We see fusion of the older and confusion of the younger. But soon the confusion unfurls, portraying a cultural difference and defiance. Changes occur, a new assertive identity emerges.
A large cocoon in a bush caught her attention. The creature struggled from within to get out of its coffin-like web. She set up her camera … The cocoon moved, quivered, the insect within wriggled. Life evolving in reverse, coffin to birth. She waited, watched the struggle … the eventual emergence, a moth, a truly ugly large brown creature with bulging eyes. The moth dangled at the tip of its cocoon for a few moments, uncertain, studying the new universe. Born unafraid ... Following its instincts, it dangled on a thin web-string. It twisted and turned. Its wings caught the sun. Energised, it flew away. Daya had captured a birth. (from White Hibiscus)
White Hibiscus
By Leela Devi Panikar
February 2024, Entrepot Publishing Sdn Bhd
Softcover. 12.7 cm x 19.6 cm, 304 pages
Language: English
Genre: Fiction
ISBN 978-629-99042-1-2
Available at entrepotpublishing.com
About the Author
Leela Devi Panikar is a fiction writer. She is a Hong Konger who now lives in Penang. As a keen traveller, and having lived in Wales, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Penang she has infused her stories with unique cultural observations. Her love of language and her writing reflect a great ability to produce compact, polished stories, touching and humorous – stories like ‘Sexy Send Off’ and ‘The Shadow’ – stories that portray empathy for human and non-human characters.
Her first award from the BBC filled her with a passion for writing. She changed her career from that of a successful businessperson, owner of the Prince of Wales Pub and two antique shops, Witchcraft 1 & 2, in Hong Kong, to that of a fulltime writer.
BBC Award
In choosing Penang as the winning entry from over 500 stories worldwide, Peter Kemp, Fiction Editor of the UK Sunday Times, said: It stood out for me because I think it compressed in a really magnificent way, so many aspects of the hometown in 199 words … it terrifically evoked all the different senses, the sights, the smells, and the tastes as well … a little masterpiece of compression, of miniature atmospheric evocation ... the best of a very, very good bunch of entries.
Her other awards are from Turner in the UK, the South China Morning Post Hong Kong and Radio Three Hong Kong. Her works have also appeared in various journals and periodicals.
Other titles by Leela Devi Panikar
• The Darjeeling Affair – extraordinary moments in ordinary lives.
• Bathing Elephants – for all we shared the 2004 Tsunami with, here and gone.
• Floating Petals – economy of words, love of language.
For further information, see www.leela.net