Photo: danielkalla.comThe renowned poet William Carlos Williams was a doctor. The renowned Afghani-American novelist Khaled Hosseini was a doctor, as he says, "until my patients wanted to talk about my books more than their illnesses." Prize-winning Canadian novelist Vincent Lam, author of The Headmaster's Wager, still works as an Emergency Room physician in Toronto.
Another medical author, Daniel Kalla, who got his MD from UBC, now works in a Vancouver ER. Since 2005, when his first novel Pandemic came out, he's produced the thrillers Resistance (2006), Rage Therapy (2006), Blood Lies (2007), Cold Plague (2008) and Of Flesh and Blood (2010). Kalla is now an internationally best-selling author whose seventh novel, a work of historic fiction, came out this year.
According to his website, The Far Side of the Sky "focuses on a short but extraordinary period of Chinese, Japanese and Jewish history when cultures converged and heroic everyday sacrifices were part of the everyday quest for survival." It was reviewed by Anna Porter in the Globe and Mail.
I heard him speak about this book in a recent CBC interview. Even though I missed some part of the conversation when I had to drive through the Massey Tunnel, I knew immediately that I had to read this book. Thank you, Santa Claus.
Even better news: this is just the first volume of an astonishing love story set in Shanghai during WWII ends in 1942. Kalla is planning a sequel before returning to thrillerdom.
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