WIN $150 GIFT VOUCHERS: ALADDIN'S GOLD
Praveen Herat was born in London to Sri Lankan parents and educated at Oxford and the University of East Anglia. He lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for several years, a period that marked him profoundly and prompted his research for what would become Between This World and the Next. Since 2010, he has lived in Paris.
"""An intricate and headlong international thriller, Between This World and the Next tells the story of Fearless, a burnt-out British war photographer, and Song, a Cambodian woman who has been physically and psychologically beset by the violence in her country. When Song disappears, leaving only a mysterious videotape behind, Fearless must navigate a dangerous network of shady power brokers, transnational kingpins, sex traffickers, and arms dealers, uncovering a sprawling network of criminality and corruption in a newly post-Soviet world. Praveen Herat challenges our own complicity as passive observers when exposed to a constant stream of media depicting suffering across the world and asks what we truly know about anyone, even those we hold dearest. This propulsive, page-turning novel counters assumptions of what an immigrant writer is supposed to be. Riven by dark acts, the story is uplifted by love—the love between sisters, the love of the bereaved, and a remarkable platonic love between Fearless and Song. A passionate exploration of power, poverty, and greed, Between This World and the Next pushes immigrant literature to another stage with its sharp new perspective."" —Prize Judges Tiphanie Yanique, Deepak Unnikrishnan, and Ilan Stavans"
