‘Frangipani Year’ launched
Frangipani Year is the newest addition to post-tsunami inspired literature. Launched on Thursday May 28, the book is Alexandra Harris’s account of aid work in Aceh Indonesia.
Author Alexandra Harris
Using her protagonist, Angela to tell of the experiences of a young aid worker from America employed by the UN as a researcher, the book is based on some of the author’s own exposure to the situation. Having served under the UN and other non-profit organisations, Alexandra’s account is one of the ten years she spent in Indonesia. Although the story spans over the course of 2006 following the disaster, writing it was a process “of multiple years” she shared.
Undertones of the ever-present Sharia law keeping a strict eye on its subjects and the devastation left behind after the waves settled is the backdrop against which her story comes to life. “Not all of it actually happened” she clarified at the launch, some scenes “like the segregated rock-concert” described in the book are purely fictional.
The picture Alexandra paints of the rubble, among which a pink tiled toilet stands in isolation and the ghastly silence among the debris is not unfamiliar to Sri Lanka where she now resides. Usually focused on publishing stories in a Sri Lankan context, the similarities seen in her work and the local experience of the tsunami’s aftermath is what got the PH Publishing House interested in Angela’s Indonesian experience.
Alexandra autographing books at the event