An unsentimental yet moving narrative, a sobering alternative to Dead Poets Society and To Sir, With Love. With its deep probing look at the teaching profession, it unveils a rich array of themes—homosexual awakening, human actions and consequences, the individual in conflict with society, and most compellingly, the nature of perhaps the most noble and difficult of vocations.” —Boey Kim Cheng, author of Clear Brightness

One last time and on her birthday, Rose de Souza is returning to school to give a final lesson to her classroom of secondary school boys before retiring from her long teaching career. What ensues is an unexpected confession in which she recounts the tragic and traumatic story of Amir, a student from her past who overturned the way she saw herself as a teacher, and changed her life forever.

This stunning first novel from award-winning poet Cyril Wong is a tour de force, an exceptional examination of the power of choice and the unreliability of memory.

Published: October 2013

Cyril Wong

Author: Cyril Wong

Cyril Wong is a two-time Singapore Literature Prize-winning poet and the recipient of the Singapore National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award for Literature. His books include poetry collections Tilting Our Plates to Catch the Light (2007) and The Lover’s Inventory (2015), novels The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza (2013) and This Side of Heaven (2020), and fiction collection Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me (2014). He completed his doctoral degree in English Literature at the National University of Singapore in 2012. His works have been featured in the Norton anthology, Language for a New Century, in Chinese Erotic Poems by Everyman’s Library, and in magazines and journals around the world. His writings have been translated into Turkish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese and Japanese

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