Softly, As I Leave You

Description

Turning back, she saw his blurred figure through the lace curtain, an abstract pattern of their intense criss-crossed liaison. He was looking at her. What was he seeing? How isolated we are, she thought, how unconnected?

One late spring morning, Uma awakens to a life in which her relationships – to lover, to husband, to son – seem unbearably tangled. In capturing its seering and intimate moments, the story transcends into a mediation on love and betrayal, grief and redemption.

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“The breadth of Chandani Lokuge's experience stands her well in this ambitious attempt to embody within the tale of one marriage, the complex textures of enrichment, incomprehension, displacement, delight and sorrow that follow the interlacing of ethnic, cultural and geographic boundaries that's characteristic of contemporary Australian society.”

Jennifer Strauss

Chandani Lokuge's literary style is drenched with powerful imagery, voluptuous description and acute observations of the fractured, uncertain nature of 21st century life. The heart-breaking clarity of her writing resonates long after reading Softly, As I leave You.

Susan Kurosawa