SINGAPORE: Kyla Zhao, a Singaporean student at Stanford Authors in the United States, experienced extreme isolation and homesickness in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She also felt devastated and doubtful that she would ever see Singapore’s sunny beaches again due to travel restrictions and grounded flights. Writer Ms Zhao, now 26 years old, found comfort in writing about Singapore to help her feel more at home.
That eventually became her debut book, The Fraud Squad, about a young woman who spies on the local high society to try to land a coveted writing job at an upscale magazine.
Writing about Singapore and its cuisine allowed Ms. Zhao, who initially had no plans to publish her story, to “think about home while I was halfway across the world.
Her book was published in January 2023 and was picked up by Penguin Random House’s Berkley Books in June 2021. A year later, she published Valley Verified, her second book. Her fourth book is scheduled for publication in 2026, and she is expected to release a chess-themed book in September.
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