Between Lives by K.S. Maniam

• National Library of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Sumitra, a social worker, leads a fabulous life. She can pluck from the alien spaces in her mind the needed insights to put her subjects back on the track. She and Christina, her colleague and friend, invent themselves so often they think they are always teetering on the verge of some disaster. Sumitra does slip over the edge - when she meets Sellamma, the old woman, she has to get into a welfare home. When Sellamma refuses to budge, Sumitra besieges her by sitting in front of her every day. Sellamma finally relents and lets Sumitra into her memories and treats her as her long-lost sister. Sumitra plays along, hoping to find the flaw that will help her dislodge the old woman from her memories and her land. Instead, she finds herself under the spell of the old woman's personality and memories. Sumitra does her own painful self-examination and remembering: she recalls her lost innocence, and that moment when she took the false road. After Sellamma's death, Sumitra, with the support of Christina and Aishah, her other colleague, refuses to surrender the land Sellamma has left her.
Between Lives is an insightful journey through memory, self-scrutiny, and love. It is tender and frank, and an invitation to live fully with each other and with the land.

K.S. Maniam is a short story writer and novelist. His stories have appeared in local and overseas anthologies, notably in Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast , Kunapipi, and Rim of Fire: Stories from the Pacific Rim. He is the inaugural recipient of the Raja Rao Award (September 2000, New Delhi) for his outstanding contribution to the Literature of the South Asian Diaspora. He has been lecturer (1980- 1985) and Associate Professor (1986-1997) in the English Department, University of Malaya. He lives with his wife, son and daughter in Subang Jaya, and devotes his time fully to writing.