How We Disappeared

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel set in World War II Singapore about a woman who survived the Japanese occupation and a man who thought he had lost everything — for fans of Pachinko and We Were the Lucky Ones

"A heartbreaking but hopeful story about memory, trauma and ultimately love."  -  The New York Times

Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked. Only three survivors remain -  one of them a tiny child.  In a neighbouring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is bundled into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military rape camp. In the year 2000, her mind is still haunted by her experiences there, but she has long been silent about her memories of that time. It takes twelve-year-old Kevin, and the mumbled confession he overhears from his ailing grandmother, to set in motion a journey into the unknown to discover the truth.

"Raises poignant questions regarding multi-generational trauma, accelerated modernization, and changing identity… Lee vibrantly describes life in pre-occupation Singapore, managing to cinch both the particularity and the universality of oppression."   – Singapore Unbound

Weaving together two timelines and two life-changing secrets, How We Disappeared is an evocative, profoundly moving and utterly dazzling novel heralding the arrival of a new literary star.