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Yesterday’s KL-born author is today’s star of literary world

KUALA LUMPUR — Scientist-turned-author Felicia Yap’s first thriller novel is still eight months away, but the frenzied auction for Yesterday has led to the book and its writer being touted as among the literary world’s newest sensations of the year.

Ms Felicia Yap has landed a six-figure deal for her first thriller novel, Yesterday. Photo: Felicia Yap’s facebook page

Ms Felicia Yap has landed a six-figure deal for her first thriller novel, Yesterday. Photo: Felicia Yap’s facebook page

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KUALA LUMPUR — Scientist-turned-author Felicia Yap’s first thriller novel is still eight months away, but the frenzied auction for Yesterday has led to the book and its writer being touted as among the literary world’s newest sensations of the year.

British newspaper The Guardian last week named Ms Yap among the “rising stars of 2017”, prompted by the race to publish the novel that landed the Kuala Lumpur-born author with a six-figure deal.

The final auction had three publishers battling it out before Headline Publishing Group’s Alex Clarke snapped up the rights for the new imprint.

But even before then, Ms Yap’s work — which took her 15 months to write — saw eight agents fighting to represent it.

Newsweek declared the novel by the Faber Academy writing school alumnus to be one of 2017’s literary events, months ahead of its scheduled debut in August.

In the Guardian interview, Ms Yap said she was born to a banker and grew up in a “tiny house” in Kuala Lumpur, and she remembered affectionately her father’s “old, dusty brown” Datsun — before studying biochemistry at Imperial College London.

She then became a researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, before making a career switch to history at Cambridge, where she earned a PhD.

She later had a stint as a journalist — including for the Business Times in Singapore — before trying her hand at writing the book that netted a six-figure sum from an auction for its publishing rights.

Ms Yap, 35, said she is happiest when writing novels.

“I felt euphoric and anxious,” she told The Guardian as she recalled waiting in front of her computer for news from the auction for her title.

According to her, the idea for the high-concept novel surfaced when she was on her way to a ballroom dancing class: “How do you solve a murder when you can only remember yesterday?”

In the novel, human memory stops working after the age of 18, and most people can only remember the past 24 hours and keep electronic diaries to remind themselves of what they did and felt.

“(It) holds up a mirror to how we make memories, what we choose to forget, what we choose to believe,” Ms Yap told Newsweek.

She is currently working on a prequel to Yesterday, and admitted that there is “keen and ongoing” competition for the film rights. THE MALAY MAIL

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