LATEST REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: "MY SISTER MEDA, A MEMOIR OF OLD SINGAPORE"

 

"The fascinating history of a Jewish family’s life in Old Singapore."

With careful research and elegant prose, Saltoon pays moving homage to her family in this memoir of Sephardic Jews in the colonial Old Singapore. Saltoon tells the story in evocative scenes (“she promised him the best satay in Singapore, if not the world, served by a humble Malay vendor called Jalak out in an open-air site off the road”) and occasional poetry, tracing the family’s origins and capturing the texture of daily life in a Short Street townhouse in a neighborhood “of Chinese, Malays, Eurasians, as well as other Mahalla Jews.”

The inevitability of World War II, though, looms over the island colony, and Saltoon offers illuminating background about international politics of the era as well as eye-opening accounts of life in internment camps during the Japanese occupation. Saltoon’s story opens with the origins of her parents, with mother Girjee, renamed later as Grace, born in Baghdad, and sent to far-off Singapore to marry. Little was expected of Nassim, her father, who was afflicted with a stammer and uncontrollable trembling, as he entered adulthood in a Jewish home in Singapore. Their union, the result of a matchmaker, produced not only several healthy children but a confident couple of high standing within their community. Saltoon beautifully lays out her parents' lives, and Grace stands as an example of strength as she persists in her sewing, catering, and envisioning of a grand future despite her worsening vision.

Saltoon’s sister, the beloved Meda of the title, eventually pulls the family from conflict zones and camps with the help of her American husband. Readers follow alongside each of the adult children as they find love and purpose in their lives. Detail into the family’s transition as they fled the East and transitioned into Western life comes through insightful correspondence, revealing their feelings about these changes in real time. This memoir is an act of history and of love.

More Reviews forthcoming!