Winner of the 2022 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Praveen Herat’s debut novel Between This World and the Next is a compelling and thought-provoking literary thriller.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“A dogged thriller with political bite. Herat recalls Robert Stone with his themes of morality, redemption, and uncrossable cultural boundaries. . . . In capturing a place and state of mind in which corruption is viewed as ‘the only breach against chaos,’ the London-based, Sri Lanka–rooted author has given us a book that won’t be easy to forget.”
In his own words, here is Praveen Herat’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Between This World and the Next:
I’m really excited to take part in this series. Even though I’m immersed in literary culture, it’s music that most influences how and what I write. From its earliest chapters, in which a Cambodian pop song lingers over a Phnom Penh street, Between This World and the Next is shaped by musical spirits as diverse as the places and times it explores. A literary thriller, the book crosses the globe as Fearless, a celebrated British photojournalist, sets out to find a missing girl called Song: a challenge which compels him to confront bitter truths about the world and how it is changing in unseen and neglected corners.
Ros Sereysothea, “Kom Nirk Oun Euy” (Don’t Miss Me Baby)
The central protagonist of Between This World and the Next is Song (a nickname bestowed on her by the Western clients of the brothel where once upon a time she worked and sang). “Kom Nirk Oun Euy,” and its lyrics, bookend her story: a yearning for a new life and world, where we are reunited with what we have lost.
Ros Sereysothea is one of the most important singers in Cambodia’s musical history. Her voice is strong and soaring but also hauntingly fragile. She disappeared during the Khmer Rouge era, and many of the master recordings of her work were destroyed by Pol Pot’s regime. But she will never die.
Talk Talk, “I Believe In You”
If I had only one desert-island album, it would be Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. In Between This World and the Next, a reference to it is discovered in the wreckage of a car crash on a burnt scrap of paper: the birth plan belonging to Laure, Fearless’s partner, who had hoped it would be playing during her labor.
“I Believe In You” is heartbreaking: a plea from singer Mark Hollis to his brother, whose heroin addiction killed him in the month the single was released. But what it leaves you with, to the sound of a cathedral choir soaring into the ether, is not just grief but the sense of something numinous. Something which, to quote Philip Larkin, is “nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”*
* (Readers of the UK edition of Between This World and the Next will find a special reference to the song in the hardback edition if they look carefully. A little Easter egg for the eagle-eyed.)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, “All Along the Watchtower”
It’s not directly mentioned, but “All Along the Watchtower” is the soundtrack to a key scene in Between This World and the Next: it’s the booming music in the riotous Naga Bar, where Fearless loses consciousness and his moorings to the world. The lyrical mystery and confusion of “All Along the Watchtower”—How exactly do you go along a watchtower? Who on earth are the riders that are approaching?—invoke Fearless’s descent into chaos, and prefigure questions about the intentions and objectives of the novel’s key characters. Who’s the joker? Who’s the thief?
Warren G, “Regulate”
When Fearless arrives in Liberia, hell-bent on unraveling an international arms deal that he believes will help him trace the whereabouts of Song, he climbs into a taxi driven by Quincy: a genial wise guy who ferries him into Monrovia. “Regulate” is playing on Quincy’s stereo, a song from the era that epitomizes his laid-back demeanor, which is an antidote to Fearless’s frazzled state. Hip-hop, past and present, has always been a big part of my life and, while I find it hard to listen to this track unironically, it was important for me to honor this somewhere in the novel.
Theravada Buddhist almsgiving chants
I’m agnostic but grew up with two strong spiritual influences: my mother’s Methodist faith and my father’s Theravada Buddhism (which is Buddhism’s oldest school and its primary form in Sri Lanka). In the twelfth century, Theravada also rose to prominence in Cambodia after King Jayavarman VII sent his son to Sri Lanka to be ordained—a connection and shared outlook that still exists, and which I was often aware of when I lived in Phnom Penh.
In the novel, an episode where Song gives alms to the priests from her local wat provides a turning point that sets off an unstoppable train of events. And in my own life, the annual almsgiving, through which we remembered my father, was a way of revivifying our connection to those we have lost. This is what happens to Song: her dead, against all odds, suddenly spring to life again.
The Velvet Underground, “Sister Ray”
This song is part of the soundtrack to Fearless’s friendship with his school friend Jimmy, who helps and then, to his eyes, betrays him. As well as representing the energy and possibility of adolescence, it also has a special appeal to me, as Between This World and the Next and its intricate, interlocking plot had to be precisely and rigorously planned. “Sister Ray” is the opposite: a squall of unbridled, one-take, improvised chaos! Novels can’t really be made that way—but I still adore that spirit.
Keith Jarrett, “The Köln Concert”
This is the other choice recorded on Laure’s birth plan: a ravishing, extended swoon of solo piano. “Part I” in particular is astonishing—a 26-minute improvisation that moves you through a landscape of planes and peaks. I often think of a novel’s narrative elements as musical movements, something Milan Kundera examines beautifully in The Art of the Novel. And when I do, this concert comes to mind.
Jon Hassell, “Dreaming”
This is not part of the soundtrack to the novel, but the soundtrack to my writing of it, which took place in cafes (I am easily distracted at home!). Surrounded by other people and the whirl of Parisian street life, I can better enter into a state of flow—as long as I have my trusty headphones to hand. I also need the perfect track, which I loop over and over: something immersive and oneiric, which occupies a parallel frequency to my writing mind. This is a go-to.
In over thirty years of digging, I have amassed thousands of records but, in all my collection, there’s absolutely nothing like Listening to Pictures. Hassell was a trailblazer, even in his eighties when he made this. Artistically, what more could you possibly aspire to?
Praveen Herat was born in London to Sri Lankan parents and educated at Oxford and the University of East Anglia. He lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for several years, a period that marked him profoundly and prompted his research for what would become Between This World and the Next. Since 2010, he has lived in Paris.