Finalist for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize After breaking out of an impregnable tomb deep underground, five-year-old Mei Choon is trapped in a city locked down in the grip of the plague. She leaves China for British Malaya where, coming of age, she escapes a house of ill repute through grit and guile. World War II catches up with Mei Choon, the woman. When the British flee Penang in a "whites-only" train, she finds herself in the thick of the Japanese aerial bombardment.