An Asian Destiny by Gwendolyn Chabrier

An Asian Destiny by Gwendolyn Chabrier

Sabrina, a precocious and headstrong child born to a New York socialite and her alcoholic husband in the 1950s, struggles within the confines of her wealthy but dysfunctional family. Her only confidants are her stuffed animals and pets, until Didi, her aristocratic British stepfather arrives.

A year with Didi in Burma amounts to an awakening for Sabrina, where she is introduced to Buddhism and blossoms in the rich spiritual culture of Rangoon, the opposite of her life of banality and neglect in America.

The idyll ends all too soon. Later, Sabrina returns briefly to another part of Asia as a young mother, with tragic and bitter results. But, remaining true to a clairvoyant prediction during her first sojourn in Burma, her determination to remember and support the Burmese people and by extension her childhood friend, now the embattled leader of Burma’s democratic movement, remains unflagging.

A fascinating juxtaposition of Eastern and Western culture, written with the authenticity of someone who has seen the best and worst of both.

Gwendolyn Chabrier, the American author of Faulkner’s Families: a Southern Saga, published in France and America, has now published her first novel, An Asian Destiny which, following its release by Orchid Press in Asia, will appear this spring in France at Les Editions du Rocher.

Ms. Chabrier graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a BA and MA. She began her Doctoral studies at Harvard, which were completed in France, and she holds a Doctorat d’Etat with highest honors from the University de Paris IV-Sorbonne. Ms. Chabrier has been a professor of literature at New York University, the University of Rouen, and the Sorbonne. She has also been a literary scout for Les Editions Lebaud in Paris. Immediately following the publication of her novel An Asian Destiny, Les Editions du Rocher is publishing a biographical and literary analysis that she has written on Norman Mailer, entitled Norman Mailer: The American Prophet.

Paperback
Dragon’s Mouth Press
Hong Kong 2004
268 pages
ISBN 9789889776459