Ex-Facebook head of communications Vanessa Chan on her novel The Storm We Made, set in Malaysia’s past, and being ‘obsessed’ with Michelle Yeoh

Vanessa Chan set The Storm We Made partly during the Japanese occupation of Malaya to preserve the memories of people like her grandmother, she tells the Post

She explains how her mother’s death helped her craft a character, and why she will ‘make space’ for Michelle Yeoh if there is a screen adaptation of her book

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Malaysian-born author Vanessa Chan talks to the Post about her debut novel The Storm We Made, set in the lead-up to Japan’s invasion of British Malaya in World War II. Photo: Vanessa Chan

Published: 7:15am, 14 Feb 2024Updated: 9:03am, 16 Feb 2024

Vanessa Chan is neither a mother nor a spy, and she did not live through the Japanese occupation of Malaya during the second world war. But the first-time author has managed to weave all these elements into The Storm We Made, her gritty debut novel that has been winning rave reviews since it hit bookshelves in early January.

The novel spans a decade in British Malaya, including the Japanese occupation, and revolves around discontented housewife Cecily Alcantara who, seduced by a man and an ideology, slips into a dangerous double life.

Her actions ultimately bring devastating consequences for both her country and her family, including her three young children, Jujube, Abel and Jasmin.

The success of The Storm We Made, which has been translated into 20 languages, has all been a bit surreal for the Malaysian-born author.

Sitting in her home in Brooklyn, New York, where she wrote the book during the coronavirus pandemic, she tells the Post: “I just never really thought that a book about Malaysia would have any sort of audience, really, outside of our region, let alone in the US, let alone in the world.

“It’s just been very exciting, but also, I think, quite bewildering. I’m just not used to this kind of attention.”