A Whirlwind Saga

Author Vanessa Chan's The Storm We Made offers an untold perspective of World War II in Malaya through a heart-wrenching pageturner

- Kiran Pillay

When Vanessa Chan set out to write her first novel, she had never intended to delve into the historical fiction genre. Her debut novel, The Storm We Made, centres around Cecily Alcantara, a Malayan mother who becomes an unlikely spy for the invading Japanese army during World War II and the horrifying torrent of consequences that befall her family and community.

The novel was released on January 2, 2024, to rave reviews, fast becoming a bestseller in the United States and the top pick of notable book clubs, including Good Morning America and BBC Radio 2. It has since been translated into 20 languages, with Chan even approached by Japanese publisher Shunjusha. “We should learn from stories of the women who were dragged into the war,” they wrote to Chan, who never expected to gain traction in Japan, moved by the sale.

“The Storm We Made started as a throwaway assignment in graduate school,” Chan recalls. Tasked with writing a short story that could repeat on a loop, Chan had first written about a girl’s harrowing experience running through multiple checkpoints in an attempt to return home before wartime curfews. “As a testament to a good teacher, mine wrote, ‘I believe that you should consider that this might be the outline of something longer—this might be your novel,’ and I went for it. Then, the pandemic happened,” Chan mentions, working on and off over the following two years to flesh out the story.