The Great Reclamation

The Great Reclamation

Author	Rachel Heng
Genre	Literary fiction, historical fiction, magical realism, coming-of-age novel
Publisher	Riverhead Books
Publication date	March 28, 2023
Pages	464
ISBN	978-0593420119
Preceded by	Suicide Club

The Great Reclamation is a 2023 novel by Singaporean novelist Rachel Heng, published by Riverhead Books. Heng's second novel, it follows the life of a family in Singapore during the turbulence of World War II, specifically the Japanese occupation of Singapore. It was mentioned in several anticipated releases lists, recommended reading lists, and year-end best books lists, as well as longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Synopsis

The novel starts in 1941, following a young boy, Ah Boon, as he grows up in a kampong along the southeastern Singapore coast. Growing up, Ah Boon falls in love with a revolutionary girl named Sok Mei while he inhabits and reckons a country going through much turbulence: the shuttering of British colonial rule, the invasion of the Imperial Japanese Army, and the effort of his people to build a country after independence. With his remarkable ability to see magical islands in the ocean, Ah Boon finds himself in a difficult, complicated position to be a part of his country's history.

A historical fiction novel, the Great Reclamation tackles a difficult part of Singaporean history and addresses themes of independence, sovereignty, colonialism, progress, development, and many more.

Title

The book's name refers to the Great Reclamation, or the East Coast Reclamation Scheme, which was a physical expansion project led by the government of Singapore after independence that ultimately added 1,525 hectares to the country's southeastern coastline. It began in 1966 and took three decades, in seven phases, to fully complete, costing $613 million in total. The land is now home to developed areas like Marine Parade, Katong, East Coast Park, and others.

Heng ultimately chose the title in order to associate the strong wills and challenges of her characters with that of a nation building itself. In Shondaland, she stated that "People tried to dissuade me from titling it because maybe they thought it was too abstract, but it was important to me because it really speaks to the central question of the book, as you pointed out."

Background

Heng grew up in the midst of Singapore's development, a time which she stated in BOMB Magazine as being described reductively: "When I was growing up, Singapore’s development was always positioned as a miracle story ... But that story never acknowledges the loss and the sadness, and the brutality of change, the break with what came before." As a result, Heng felt a "strange temporal dislocation" being wedged between her aunts' stories of poverty and her own upbringing in relative prosperity.

Through the young boy protagonist of Ah Boon, Heng wanted to write a character that was growing, changing, and resolving his own identity against the backdrop of a country doing the same. With Ah Boon juxtaposed with the other characters in the novel, such as Siok Mei, Uncle, Hia, and others who possess "different visions", Heng wanted a story of "a community and a country" that was "polyphonic and big and to have all these competing visions and voices".

Heng began researching for her novel in 2017, spending an entire year reading books, speaking with scholars, interviewing her family, and perusing through archives like the National Archives of Singapore. At the time, Heng was a student at the Michener Center for Writers. In 2018, an excerpt titled "Gah Men" was published in Guernica. Heng ultimately finished her first draft in 2018 and finished revising it in 2021.

In Shondaland and NPR, Heng named The Red and the Black by Stendhal—a novel about a French man who idolizes and wants to be like Napoleon—as an inspiration for the novel. Other inspirations were The Known World by Edward P. Jones, The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-yi, State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang, The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, and The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût. Charles Lim's SEA STATE, as well as photographs by Sim Chi Yin, were additionally named as inspirational.

Critical reception

In addition to being longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the book was longlisted for Joyce Carol Oates Prize and the Dublin Literary Award.

In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews wrote that the novel was "Like a drop of rain that holds the reflection of the world, crystalline and beautiful." Also in a starred review, Publishers Weekly said "This epic undertaking is not to be missed."

The Straits Times said "It might be the next great Singapore novel." The New York Times called it an "epic novel" that "asks the reader to confront the big things, like love and identity and loss, but it allows us to revel in the little things, too, from the buttery taste of steamed fish to the smooth surface of a rubber seed." The New Yorker, in a briefly noted review, wrote that the novel "illustrates the unsteadiness of both the physical environment and personal and political allegiances during a time of overwhelming historical change." Electric Literature dubbed it "a sprawling, scrupulously researched marvel." Jeremy Tiang, for the Los Angeles Review of Books, wrote that "Rachel Heng’s novel uses the dreams and aspirations of a kampong boy to track Singapore’s journey to 'a bright, orderly, prosperous future,' whilst clearly delineating everything that the country thoughtlessly cast aside in the name of progress, revealing how paltry this progress turned out to be—and asks if it was all worth it." The Japan Times said "The novel is full of vivid, delicious writing, and the story is addictive, moving across time at a startlingly rapid clip of progress—just as it really happened in Singapore." The Asian Review of Books noted "Heng’s writing is engaging from the beginning and it doesn’t take long for the story to pick up speed."

The book appeared on several lists. Electric Literature, The New Yorker, BookPage, and Town & Country called it a best book of 2023. Time included it on their list of 100 must-reads for 2023. Amazon Books considered it a runner-up in their best books list in June 2023. The New York Times picked it for Editor's Choice on May 4, 2023. Vanity Fair recommended it for April 2023. Harper's Bazaar called it one of the best summer beach reads for 2023. Orion and USA Today placed it on a list of anticipated reads for 2023. PopSugar placed it on a list of anticipated reads in historical fiction for 2023. Penguin Random House and PureWow recommended it for 2023 Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Ms. didn't include it on their most anticipated feminist books of 2023 but briefly mentioned it as one to "absolutely read".

When the book's paperback edition came out in March 2024, The New York Times recommended it on a paperbacks list. The American Booksellers Association placed it on their spring 2024 reading group guide.