Delayed Rays of a Star

(Paperback)

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CHOSEN AS ONE OF 2019'S MOST ANTICIPATED TITLES FOR BY ELLE, THILLIST, USA TODAY, LITHUB, KIRKUS AND LA TIMES 'Ambitious and dazzling ... entertaining and thought-provoking too' Daily Mail 'Impressive' The Times 'Voraciously intelligent, heartrending ... Amanda Lee Koe is a brilliant writer' Garth Greenwell ________________ When a photographer captures Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong and Leni Riefenstahl in one frame at a party in Berlin in 1928, no one realizes the extent to which their lives will reflect the tumultuous decades that follow. Marlene crosses the Atlantic to find fame in Hollywood, the town that eats out of the palm of her hand till her wrinkles begin to show. After establishing her position as a filmmaker, Leni watches her fame turn to notoriety following the defeat of Nazi Germany. In 90 per cent of the films she appears in, the side characters played by Anna May must die so the white male lead can be returned to his white paramour on the screen. In the murky world these women navigate, their choices will be held up to the test of time. And the real question is, how much has anything changed This fierce and exquisite debut about womanhood, ambition, and art, played out against the shifting political tides of the twentieth century, introduces a mesmerizing new literary talent for our times.

Reviews

In this swirling, brilliant debut, both the famous and the unknown struggle to navigate the tide of history. Cultures collide, horizons appear, worlds collapse. Filled with hope and desperation, Amanda Lee Koe's novel is a timely and timeless enquiry into what it means to be a woman, and a human being, in a universe that often seems not to care -- Tash Aw
A sprawling affair, with three flawed, charismatic heroines for the price of one Richly three-dimensional * Mail on Sunday *
An ambitious and dazzling debut thats entertaining and thought-provoking too * Daily Mail *
An impressive debut * The Times *
Its full of so much historical detail and I love the story and the narrative. Its got great drive to it and it sent me looking for the real stories behind -- BBC Radio 4 Front Row
This is a voraciously intelligent, heartrending novel. Few books have so much life in them, or are so willing to explore the terrors of war and desire, the ruthlessness of genius. Maybe this novel can face the dark so fearlessly because it is itself so radiant, a blazing star. Amanda Lee Koe is a brilliant writer -- Garth Greenwell
Delayed Rays of a Star is a big globe-trotting, time-traveling wonder of a novel that made me laugh and in a hundred other ways appreciate the playful brilliance of Amanda Lee Koe. This is writing to be devoured and shared, and a writer's arrival to be celebrated -- Ben Metcalf
Vivid, fictionalised deep dives into three women who changed cinema * Publishers Weekly *
A sweeping sense of history that feels truly alive * Kirkus Reviews *
In The Thirty Best Books to Read This Summer * Elle *
An empathetic and devastating portrait of women equally defined by their passion and their politics * Lit Hub *
This insightful and fascinating study of the ravages of fascism and racism is, somewhat paradoxically, a page-turner. * Brooklyn Eagle *

Author Bio

Amanda Lee Koe was the fiction editor of Esquire Singapore, an honorary fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, the recipient of Columbia Universitys Henfield Prize, and the youngest winner of the Singapore Literature Prize. Born in Singapore, she lives in New York. This is her first novel.