The Weight of Our Sky
SynopsisPlot
Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother's death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied. But there are things that Melati can't protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames. With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati's arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn's surging power to make it back to the one person she can't risk losing.
Story
About this book
Melati Ahmad is a sixteen-year-old in Kuala Lumpur who loves the Beatles and going to the movies. She also lives with what she understands as a djinn inside her, a presence that floods her mind with terrible images of her mother dying unless she follows strict rituals of counting and tapping. In clinical terms, Mel experiences obsessive-compulsive disorder, but she frames her condition through the cultural lens of a spirit that must be appeased.
On the evening of May 13, 1969, racial violence erupts across Kuala Lumpur. Tensions between the Chinese and Malay communities spill into the streets, and the city is placed under curfew. Mel and her mother are separated during the chaos. With phone lines down and movement restricted, Mel sets out to find her mother with the help of Vincent, a Chinese boy. The two cross a city fractured along ethnic lines, each dependent on someone the other side of the conflict might consider an enemy.
Hanna Alkaf sets the story against a real historical event that remains sensitive in Malaysian public memory. The novel follows Mel as she contends simultaneously with external danger and the intensifying demands of the djinn in her mind, which grows louder under stress.
