Brian Brandenburg

Golden Sands Brian Brandenburg

A fascinating collection of short stories and novellas that take you back to colonial Malaya, where the plucky Tamil barrister Munisamy practices law on behalf of clients ranging from poor rubber tappers, Malay schoolmistresses, and expatriates, to Chinese tycoons, sultans, and ambassadors. Accompanied by his trusty driver Vanu, his rickety Morris Minor takes him across the length and breadth of colonial Malaya and Singapore. The stories cover a wide variety of the feasts and foibles of Asian life as it once was. A beautiful butterfly becomes a gentleman planter's downfall; a poisoning at a Chinese celebratory dinner turns into a frightful adventure, and a shady land deal goes awry when an opportunistic British businessman and an ambassador fall prey to greed and lust. A disgruntled Malay housemaid puts a hex on a group of expatriate ladies. A young Tamil man searching for a wife not only has to balance his mother's choice with his own preferences but also meets with the bigotry of the white planter society. In an-other planter story, a ménage a trois goes terribly wrong as jealousy trumps common sense. A letter written by an American church lady to a schoolboy in a poor fishing village disrupts its fragile social fabric and creates an upheaval that no one anticipated. A Chinese coffin maker faces his annual fire walking ritual and sacrifices himself for the greater good. Golden Sands will captivate you as you wend your way through the complexity of colonial Southeast Asia; tales that have not lost their relevance to the human foibles of today. Munisamy's travails draw from the writer's own experiences in today's Malaysia, where he lived and worked for many years. You will not want to put this book down!