Learned Distance: On Becoming Otherwise
Learned Distance is an intimate, contemplative memoir that traces a young man's journey across continents, cultures, and the quiet fault lines of identity. Written in a deeply reflective narrative voice inspired by the inward lyricism of Arundhati Roy, the book unfolds as a series of vividly rendered moments-childhood memories, student politics, early romances, landscapes encountered, and losses endured-each shaped by the delicate interplay between belonging and displacement.
The story begins in Malaysia during a period of social transition, where family expectations, communal traditions, and the stirrings of political consciousness form the early architecture of the narrator's world. From there, the memoir carries the reader to Tasmania in the late 1960s, where the author-still a teenager-steps into a colder, unfamiliar landscape that will expand and unsettle him in unexpected ways.
In Hobart and Launceston, he confronts new freedoms, new prejudices, and the quiet ache of distance-from home, from certainty, and at times, from himself. Student activism awakens a sense of purpose; friendships and romances teach tenderness and vulnerability; performing on stage reveals a self he never imagined; and the labour of building a restaurant from scratch becomes a test of both will and faith. Moments of beauty and fragility permeate the narrative: the first snowfall experienced with childlike wonder, the alien desolation of Queenstown's mined hills, the warmth of multicultural friendships that soften the loneliness of exile.
Yet Learned Distance is not simply a chronicle of events. It is a meditation on the spaces between people, cultures, and the multiple selves one inhabits while crossing borders-geographical, emotional, and spiritual. The memoir lingers in these spaces, examining how distance can wound, but also how it can clarify; how separation can diminish, but also how it can rearrange a life towards unexpected growth.
As the narrative moves towards the Tasman Bridge disaster and its profound impact on the author's livelihood and sense of certainty, the memoir gains a deep emotional resonance. The collapse becomes both literal and metaphorical-a moment when the fragile geometry of a young life is forced to shift. Returning to Malaysia after seven transformative years, he carries with him not just memories but the realisation that leaving a place does not sever its imprint.
Learned Distance is a story of migration, resilience, and the quiet courage required to step into new worlds while carrying old ones within. It is a book for readers who love lyrical memoirs, cross-cultural journeys, and stories that reveal how identity is shaped-not only by where we come from, but by the distances we travel to understand who we are becoming.
Immersive, tender, and beautifully observed, Learned Distance invites the reader to walk beside a young man discovering that every journey-no matter how far-ultimately leads inward.
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