"What makes Horizon Afar, this collection of short stories, unique? They traverse beyond the contemporary life of Singapore on a quest to answer the eternal question, "What made life on this earth mechanical and devoid of meaning?" Presented here is a peek into the other side of modern life, opening new windows to the life and culture of various ethnicities of South East Asia. Jayanthi Sankar is popular in the mainland just as amongst the writers of the diaspora. Her presence is totally absent in the stories themselves. The human side of Singapore, its students, life of migrant workers and their aspirations to acquire resident status, interracial origins, lives lives of sex workers, cohabiting youth and many more such lucid narrations motivated me to translate them for English readers. The short story, "A few pages from Yuka Wong's Diary", on century-old cultural and political issues of China and Japan is a unique work by any author of Indian origin."