The Great Reclamation: A Novel

As seen on NBC The Today Show, CBS Mornings, NPR Weekend Edition

Winner of the New American Voices Award, Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the Dublin Literary Award and the HWA Gold Crown Award

Named a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a ‘Best Book of 2023’ by TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, Amazon Books and Kirkus Reviews

An April 2023 Sarah Selects Book Club and Indie Next pick, A Most Anticipated book by the Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Oprah Daily, The Times, USA Today, and more!

“This is an epic novel… for the reasons life itself is epic. The Great Reclamation asks the reader to confront the big things, like love and identity and loss, but it allows us to revel in the little things, too, from the buttery taste of steamed fish to the smooth surface of a rubber seed. It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters.” —The New York Times

“A deep and powerful love story.”—NBC The Today Show

“A classic in the making.” —CBS Mornings

“The first line of Rachel Heng’s The Great Reclamation epitomizes the book’s effortless blending of sense of place and lyricism… [A] love story about both heart and home.” —TIME Magazine

“Gorgeously written and compulsively readable, The Great Reclamation is both an intimate love story and an epic historical tale that is sure to be read for years to come.” —Julie Otsuka

Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country. An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people’s feet.