Michelle Cyca: How would you describe your literary tastes?
Jen Sookfong Lee: I mostly read novels my favourites are really immersive novels that have a lot of different layers in terms of setting and character, and all those fictional elements. I look for something that will suck me in and not let me go.
The last one was
Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz, which is a pandemic novel. Oddly, she wrote it before any of this happened. It’s not that she was predicting the future, but she did a lot of research into pandemics and viruses like COVID. It’s a fascinating read, and it follows something like five protagonists and their experiences through the pandemic.