Green Curry and Caviar - by Tui Polasit (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Green Curry and Caviar: The Mystery of Arash Asahvi is not a classic romance, and yet it is a love story, an extraordinary account of love on many levels.

Neither is it a cookbook, but it is a mix of savoury adventures steeped in the tantalising flavours of Bangkok, its foods, its markets, and its grand hotels. Nor is this a travel book, and yet for everyone it becomes a journey.

Brimming with colour and fragrance, the novel is spiced with curiosity, the perfume of jasmine blossoms, and the smoke of burning joss sticks.

We glimpse a Bangkok unknown to tourists, visiting the markets, shrines, Buddhist temples, monks, and deified mediums.

Green Curry and Caviar is not a mystery, and yet its very essence is mystery: the mystery of the missing Iranian, Arash Asahvi, the mystery of political intrigue, the mysteries of Thailand and Buddhism, mysticism and meditation, the metaphysical and the spiritual, and ultimately, the great mystery of life itself.

Tui Polasit was transferred with the New Zealand government to work with the SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organisation) Military Planning Office in Bangkok. She married a Thai and raised two children while working for the Australian Embassy and later the Bangkok Bureau of The New York Times. She now lives in Sydney, Australia where she has worked for HKTDC, as well as a trade publisher and an antiques auction house. This is her first book and it is based on true events. "As described in my story, to cross reference various leads and prophesies and to later find that they almost always tallied with actual events was truly astounding."

Review Quotes

A stunning international thriller set during the eve of the Iranian Revolution, Green Curry and Caviar blends suspense and noir with deep political insight, creating a narrative that grips the reader both through its dramatic form and the very truth of its subject. Author Tui Polasit has managed the difficult task of presenting the multifarious cultures, customs, and philosophies of competing societies in such a way as to excite, rather than alienate, her audience. The international odyssey is filled with idiomatic color, organic authenticity, and a true sense of place-as-character, allowing the story to seemingly grow out of these (to an Occidental reader) foreign environments, thereby grounding the history and political trajectory of the late 1970's in an immediate and dramatic context- how, one must assume, those actually present at this time must have felt. Green Curry and Caviar- as the title suggests- furthermore explores the very conflict and dissonance of its characters, the unique inner-worlds colliding and synthesizing with a changing epoch, thereby individuating the protagonists through both zeitgeist and intimate consciousness. Ms. Polasit's writing is crisp and evocative, allowing for the epic nature of the work to breathe, to feel real and whole- to feel human. Green Curry and Caviar is a monumental work essential for fans of history, thrillers, and travelogues. I highly recommend this book. -Charles Asher