Last Quadrant

Then the moment exploded. Glass was breaking and flying.

Kyo was swept into the foaming water and mangled there.

The split second unrolled like a slow motion film, stamped forever

in Akiko’s mind. She saw the loose slump of Kyo’s body slung

backwards by the roll of foam, she saw slices and fragments

of glass fly about and the great dark underside of the boat,

thrust in through the window, riding up upon the piano

as Kyo was thrown into the water.



Twenty years ago English doctor Eva Kraig adopted Akiko, the illegitimate daughter of Kyo, who had abandoned the baby and then turned to prostitution. Now Eva may lose her beloved Akiko, for Kyo — ravaged by time and drink — has returned to claim her grown daughter.



In the havoc of a great typhoon, Akiko finds herself stranded with her adoptive mother, the natural mother she has never known and a troubled young man who has fallen in love with her. In the brief calm of the typhoon’s eye, the group arrives at the comparative safety of their wealthy English neighbour’s concrete house. There they must wait out the violence of the last quadrant — the wildest part of the storm. As the refugees draw together in a fight for survival and are forced to reckon with their deepest selves, the terrible night becomes a turning point for each of them.



First published in 1981, this is Meira Chand’s haunting, dramatic second novel, now in an updated edition for a new generation of readers.