Recalling Yesterday
Felicia Yap asked herself a perplexing question that she couldn’t answer, so she decided to write a novel, pens Tien Chew
Felicia yap is a lady who wears many hats. Once a biochemist, teacher, journalist and now a novelist on the rise, Yap is a Malaysian making a name for herself in the UK. Her interest in the literary world began to strengthen when she read an engaging book called Railway Man by Eric Lomax, an interest that would continue to develop further, and led to her enrolling into a well-known writing school called Faber Academy in London. For those unfamiliar, Faber Academy is a school that seeks to provide aspiring writers with the necessary skills and tools they need to bring their own stories to fruition. Yap’s entry into Faber Academy actually happened by chance—she received a Facebook friend request from a lady that she thought she had previously met. As it turns out, this lady had added Yap because she thought that Yap was her classmate from Faber Academy. “If someone thought that I was an alumni of this writing school, maybe it was written in the stars. We met for coffee about a couple of days after that day and she told me everything I needed to know about Faber Academy and I applied for the next immediate course,” said Yap. Fate sure has a funny way of showing us the next step in life sometimes, and Yap’s actions show that we should all follow our inner voice. The idea for her novel, Yesterday, came to her while she was making her way to her regular ballroom dance practice. The question she had was simple yet profound— how do you solve a murder when you only remember yesterday? “I was so intrigued by the possibilities that were inherent to this question that when I got to the studio, I starting working out the early contours of
How do you solve a murder when you only remember yesterday?
the story in my head,” she recalls. Amazingly, she describes that both the idea and the support from her time at Faber Academy all happened at the same time. In other words, it was a fortuitous occurrence. A big part of how the book came to be, and who Yap is as an author can be attributed to her interest in what she terms as ‘collecting experiences.’ She deems the process of travelling and putting oneself in new experiences to be an extremely rewarding feat. Through the creation of her book, Yap learnt that discipline was paramount towards turning her dreams into a reality. And since she loves to travel, it is hardly surprising that she found herself writing on trains, buses and planes. Experiences help to shape an artist and allow them to express themselves in new ways. “What’s important here is to be observant. Some of these experiences become richer if you’re more observant and pick up on small subtle details that are important to readers. These can be from experiences that are both good and bad,” said Yap. This avid traveller has been to 111 countries at the time of this writing. Through her adventures abroad, she is able to find the common link that binds us together, such as our hopes, dreams and even fears. “I think why this book has resonated with so many people in so many countries is that it taps on fears which apply to all of us,” she explains. “Deep in all of us is this desire to remember. We want to recall what we experienced, and linked with that is the fear of forgetting. My book actually draws on this relationship and holds up a mirror to us in terms of how we ourselves make memories and what we value in life,” she concludes. Deep and engaging, Yap’s literary debut, Yesterday, will be out in August this year, available in 11 languages across the globe.