The Visible Invisibles

Name: The Visible Invisibles
Brand: Penguin Random House NZ
SKU: 9789815017786
Price: 36.0 NZD
Availability: InStock

Stories of Migrant Workers in Asia

By Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu

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Summary

In The Visible Invisibles by Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu, the authors embark on a journey exploring the lives of those often overlooked in bustling urban landscapes. Through a collection of narratives, the book sheds light on the personal stories and struggles of the individuals who form the backbone of city life but remain largely unnoticed. It's an insightful examination of society and the invisible threads that support it, fused with politics and current affairs.
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Format: Paperback / softback

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The Visible Invisibles

$36⁰⁰

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If you're intrigued by the hidden stories and perspectives of individuals often overlooked in society, you might find this book compelling. It may appeal to you if you're interested in deeper insights into social and political dynamics, offering a poignant exploration of diverse experiences from around the world.

The Visible Invisibles

Description

The Visible Invisibles by Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu presents stories of migrant workers in Asia that showcase a uniquely human connection to hitherto undocumented lives—some shocking, some redeeming, yet all very real.

How much do we know about the lives of migrant workers—our cleaners, construction workers, or caregivers?

A domestic worker from the Philippines runs away from her husband, who's set out to kill her. A mine-blaster looks at his X-ray scan to realise that all he has earned from his 16 years of work is a catalogue of chronic diseases. An undocumented factory worker in Malaysia takes refuge in the wild to escape from the police. A construction worker in India is abducted and sold as a bride to a stranger. Migrant sex workers in Thailand scrimp to stretch their vanishing savings, having lost all their customers due to COVID-19. A cleaner from China struggles to cope with the cultural oddities while working in an Indian restaurant. Domestic workers in Singapore lament the hopelessness of finding love in a foreign land. A landscaper tries to rebuild his life with a reconstructed 'alien' face after he suffers a massive explosion. A project engineer who once hated his native village now plants trees to preserve its nature.

Told in their own voices, the stories presented in this collection paint an intimate portrait of the lives of low-wage migrant workers in Asia. By exploring themes of employer-employee power imbalance, love, death, religion, racism, friendship, alienation, family dynamics, digital inequality, social liberties, and migration's transformative capacity, the collected stories provide a nuanced understanding of domestic and international migration, one of the defining trends in our world today.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9789815017786

Publisher: Penguin Random House SEA

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 May 2023

Country: Singapore

Imprint: Penguin Random House SEA

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 17.0mm

Width: 155.0mm

Height: 233.0mm

Weight: 316g

Pages: 232

Collections

Education & Reference Non-Fiction Penguin Books Politics & Current Affairs Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu

About the Author

Shivaji Das is the author of Amazon (India) #1 Bestseller The Other Shangri-La- Journeys through the Sino-Tibetan frontier in Sichuan (Konark Books (2020)), Angels by the Murky River- Travels Off the Beaten Track (Yoda Press (2017)), Journeys with the caterpillar- Travelling through the islands of Flores and Sumba, Indonesia, and Sacred Love- Erotic art in the temples of Nepal (Mandala Publications/ Aadarsh Books (2018)). He was the first prize winner for Time Magazine's Sub-Continental Drift Essay contest and shortlisted for Fair Australia Prize for Short Stories. Shivaji has been actively involved in migrant issues and is the conceptualizer and organizer for the acclaimed Migrant Worker and Refugee Poetry Contests in Singapore, Malaysia and Kenya and is the founder and director of the Global Migrant Festival (https-//www.globalmigrantfestival.com). Shivaji's work and his interviews have been featured on BBC, CNBC, The Economist, Travel Radio Australia, Around the World TV, etc. Shivaji's writings have been published in magazines such as TIME, South China Morning Post, Think China, Asian Geographic, Jakarta Post, Conscious Magazine, PanaJournal, Freethinker, etc. Shivaji Das was born and brought up in the north-eastern province of Assam in India. Shivaji is a graduate from IIT Delhi and has an MBA from IIM Calcutta. He works as the Managing Director-APAC for Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting company. Shivaji is currently a Singapore citizen. Yolanda Yu is a multi-time winner of the Golden Point Award. Her book Neighbor's Luck, a collection of short stories was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Award 2020. Yolanda's work has been featured on LianHeZaoBao, Cha Journal, New York Times Travel, Zuopin Magazine, and Guangxi Literature Magazine. Her story 'The Twelfth Man' has been adapted for a film, while her story 'The Missing Clock' is a recommended read for O-Level students by Singapore's Ministry of Education, collected in the anthology How We Live Now. Yolanda is a co-organizer of the Singapore Migrant Worker Poetry Contest and Global Migrant Festival, also an event host and coordinator for outreach for the Chinese migrant worker community. Born in North-Eastern China, Yolanda came to Singapore on scholarship in 1998 and has been living there since then. She holds a Computer Science degree from the National University of Singapore and an MBA from INSEAD Business School. After her twenty years of corporate career, Yolanda is now an Executive Coach for career and leadership development.