In 2007, an academic edition of Heartland was adopted into a textbook for Singapore secondary schools offering English literature in their GCE O-Level curriculum.

In his interview with Philip Cheah, Shiau said apropos of Heartland, his first book, that he wanted to write about ‘an individual trying to find his sense of place in space (geography) and time (history), and that the Sang Nila Utama myth/history is important in the novel’s structure because ‘its ambiguity (even to the extent of whether he really encountered a lion) questions our reliance on history as fact and reinforces the theme of lost (and false) paternity”.

[1] Influenced by the style of Czech writer Milan Kundera, the novel juxtaposes precolonial, colonial, and modern narratives, starting with Alexander the Great, believed to be Sang Nila Utama’s ancestor.

He contemplates a polytechnic education after his national service, a move that has implications for his future mobility and class position in a Singapore concerned with grades and the kinds of schools one attends.

The novel’s climax lies in Wing’s discovery that the man he had always thought of as Fifth Uncle might actually be his father, a realization that complicates the idea of origin and birth as determinants of individual identity”.

[11] Kawaguchi notes, in his thesis: “Heartland's second epigraph is a quote attributed to an exiled James Joyce, who was said to have declared that ‘when I die, Dublin will be engraved on my heart.'