Surviving Political Violence: A Review of The Weight of Our Sky

On May 13, 1969, riots pitting Malays against non-Malays, mostly Chinese, broke out in Malaysia’s largest city, Kuala Lumpur. By the end of the week hundreds of people were killed, and much of the city was burned to the ground. Hanna Alkaf’s debut novel The Weight of Our Sky is set during this harrowing time. It features 16-year-old Melati, a Malay girl who has suffered from severe OCD ever since her father, a policeman, was killed while trying to stop an outbreak of violence in a neighboring city several years earlier. At the cinema with her best friend when the riots begin, Melati is separated from both her friend and her mother, in the grip of a panic attack, and saved only through the intervention of a Chinese woman. The woman takes the terrified teenager to her house and introduces her to her husband and two sons – the thoughtful and sensitive Vincent and his hotheaded brother Frankie. Both Vincent and Frankie play key roles as Melati searches for her mother, who she is sure is dead, killed because of Melati’s possession by and disobedience of the Djinn.

In Melati’s Muslim community in 1969, there were no psychiatrists and no diagnosis of OCD. Rather, she sees her symptoms as evidence of her weakness and unworthiness, her possession by the Djinn, and after trying traditional remedies to no avail, both Melati and her mother, a nurse, try to hide her compulsions – tapping fingers, counting by threes, among others – to avoid her being committed to an asylum. The riots represent the very worst that can happen to someone like her, but they also provide Melati with a chance to develop confidence if she can face the worst – assuming she and her loved ones survive. Alkaf has done an exemplary job of showing the attitudes at the time toward disability and how a young person tries to cope on her own. Melati’s disability is consistent throughout the novel, affecting her every move, and there are no miracle cures at the end. The story is fast-paced, with secondary characters who ring true and vivid narrative that places readers in the midst of a city exploding with violence and ruined in its aftermath.