Escape from Paradise: From Third World to First is a 2001 non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 book written by John Harding and May Chu Harding set in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Brunei

Brunei

Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The book tells, from the author's perspective, of her struggle to divorce her ex-husband, Hin Chew Chung, whom she married in an arranged marriage in Singapore. She encountered difficulties with Singapore's lawyers and judges which made the divorce difficult. Her husband hiring noted Queen's Counsel

Queen's Counsel

Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...

 Alexander Irvine

Derry Irvine, Baron Irvine of Lairg

Alexander Andrew Mackay Irvine, Baron Irvine of Lairg, PC, QC , known as Derry Irvine, is a British lawyer and political figure who served as Lord Chancellor under his former pupil barrister Tony Blair....

 to assist him in the case did not help either.

Circulation restrictions

According to the authors, due to a chapter in the book which unfavourably mentions the former law firm of Helen Yeo, wife of Singapore's former Minister for Transport Yeo Cheow Tong

Yeo Cheow Tong

Yeo Cheow Tong is a former politician from Singapore. A member of the governing People's Action Party , he served in the Cabinet from 1990 to 2006, and was a Member of Parliament from 1984 to 2011....

, Escape from Paradise was removed from the shelves of all Singapore book stores and libraries in 2002. One copy of Escape from Paradise is still in circulation as a reference book at the National Library

National Library Board

The National Library Board is a statutory board of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, Singapore...

. .