Paradises

Multinationals and extremely rich people manage, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally, to pay little to no taxes by using services offered in fiscal paradises.

Russia has many hidden paradises.

My neighbours, the Wongs, who are multiracial from Fiji, seem intimidated by, and simultaneously jealous of, Latinate culture. Once a British colony, Fiji was never a "donkey" as was my homeland, the Philippines. I suspect that many Anglophones with less than a university education still squirm at long acrolectal Greco-Latin words in English, and they try to settle in their basilectal Anglo-Saxon speech. Tangentially, I much admire French-influenced paradises like Tahiti and Mayotte. Maybe, the Wongs should learn Dutch.

Thus, one of the loveliest of earthly paradises was doomed to be a receptacle for the very worst of malefactors.

This novel is an enchanting exploration through the green paradises of childhood love and a painful present, evoking the subtlest fragrances of the East and composing a staggering ode to the life force of words.