A darkly humorous coming-of-age novel set in Borneo, Written in Black offers a snapshot of a few days in the life of ten-year-old Jonathan Lee, attending the funeral of his grandfather, and still reeling from the drama of his mother leaving for Australia and his brother getting kicked out of the house and joining a rock band. Annoyed at being the brunt of his father’s pent-up anger, Jonathan escapes his grandfather’s wake in an empty coffin and embarks on a journey through the backwaters of Brunei to bring his disowned brother back for the funeral and to learn the truth about his absent mother. On a quest that takes him across the little-known Sultanate, past gangs of glue-sniffing poklans, cursed houses and weird shopkeepers, Jonathan discovers adventure, courage, friendship and, finally, himself.

This odyssey along the river finds visual translation in the book's cover design in the form of a custom black and white illustration depicting the supreme metaphor of the river as life itself. The protagonist can be seen sailing naked on a coffin down a meandering river that flows from the title. While the colour palette hints at the book's title too, it also gives the cover a yin yang treatment: life and death, happiness and sadness, positive and negative, each in constant motion and gradually transforming into the other around each river turn. A common sight in the jungles of Borneo, a red butterfly can also be seen as a subtle symbol of freedom from melancholy.