For Kerima Polotan's indelible protagonist Emma, love is the sole reason for being. It's what we're here for. Its enemy, whose hand prevails in the end, is life itself. By all means, one should seize whatever saving grace life has to offer, be it the glory of literature, the pleasures of art, the consolation of religious faith, and most tangible of all, worldly success. Life is essentially a trade-off, and one must never ever have any illusions about the trade-offs one makes. Polotan saves her most withering words, in passages of great descriptive power, for those who think they can have it all.

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