Dragon

The 18th-century Straits of Malacca is in crisis, beleaguered by the Dutch, the Bugis, and the clash between Siam and Burma. Enter Francis Light, devious manipulator of the status quo, joined by a cast of real historical figures from the courts of Siam and Kedah and from the East lndia Company, including Sultan Muhammed Jiwa, King Tak Sin, Warren Hastings and Martinha Rozells, a young Eurasian woman of noble birth. From humble origins in Suffolk, England, Light struggles against the social prejudices of his day. His subsequent adventures as a naval officer and country ship captain take him from India to Sumatra, the Straits of Malacca to Siam, through shipwreck, sea battles, pirate raids and tropical disease. But Light’s most difficult challenge is his ultimate dream: to establish a British port in the Indies on behalf of the East India Company.

Dragon, the first volume of Penang Chronicles, charts Francis Light’s colourful adventures in the decades before the settlement of Penang island, the Honourable Company’s first possession on the Malay Peninsula.

Reviews

At last, a novel which engages a fascinating period of British merchant imperialism and Southeast Asian history.
Philip Bowring, author of Empire of the Winds

Enthralling. Gan brings a forgotten hero back to rumbustious life.
John Keay, author of The Honourable Company: a History of the English East India Company

Historically faithful account of the early career of Francis Light, the founder of modern Penang. A marvellous cast of characters‘. . . with just the right blend of the real and the imaginary.
John D. Greenwood, author of the Singapore Saga series