Book excerpt: Kim Chen Boey writes a travel memoir which explores the condition of the migrant writer, living between the place of his birth, his adopted country, and the wider world; between the past and the present; between the city he is in, and the cities that live in his memory and imagination. The book maps his trajectory through India, China, Pakistan, to Egypt and Morocco, during the year of his wandering between his native Singapore and his new home in Berowra. His essays offer memorable portraits of his parents and grandparents, friends and teachers, barbers and backpackers, the handicapped and the poor. Boey is a poet and he brings poetic sensibility to make this writing of the most powerful kind.