Wefada Marwan, an academic, is thrust into captaining her family’s shipping business. She must also face up to her nascent feelings for her much younger Algerian student, Elemine, which she initially tries to deny. However, as their romance blossoms, she starts remembering lessons from her grandparents’ marriage to navigate her own.

Fatimah, Wefada’s grandmother, too, fell in love with an Arab man—Ben Qortubi. He migrated to Malaysia, established their shipping business, and started a family with Fatimah. But tragedy struck during the Japanese invasion of Malaysia, silencing Wefada’s grandfather forever.

Will Wefada successfully navigate the choppy waters of looking out for her family and their business while finding love?

In The Prau with the Silent Soul, Faisal Tehrani explores transgressive love, intergenerational trauma, and most importantly, the Malayan people’s unbreakable bond with their sea, which can be a nightmare and a source of love and sustenance. This is a story that has emerged from the sea and that returns to it.