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A murderer's confession - devastating, unblinking, poignant,
unforgettable - which reveals a story of class, education and the
inescapable workings of destiny. Ah Hock is an ordinary, uneducated
man born in a Malaysian fishing village and now trying to make his
way in a country that promises riches and security to everyone, but
delivers them only to a chosen few. With Asian society changing
around him, like many he remains trapped in a world of poorly paid
jobs that just about allow him to keep his head above water but
ultimately lead him to murder a migrant worker from Bangladesh. In
the tradition of Camus and Houellebecq, Ah Hock's vivid and
compelling description of the years building up to this appalling
act of violence - told over several days to a local journalist
whose life has taken a different course - is a portrait of an
outsider like no other, an anti-nostalgic view of human life and
the ravages of hope. It is the work of a writer at the peak of his
powers.
'So wise and so well done. It made me wish it were much longer than
it is' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie From the award-winning author of
Five Star Billionaire and We, The Survivors comes a whirlwind
personal history of modern Asia, as told through his Malaysian and
Chinese heritage. If we are lucky we will find writing that grips
us with its vitality, beauty and significance - Strangers on a Pier
is like that' Deborah Levy In Strangers on a Pier, acclaimed author
Tash Aw explores the panoramic cultural vitality of modern Asia
through his own complicated family story of migration and
adaptation, which is reflected in his own face. From a taxi ride in
present-day Bangkok, to eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1980s
Kuala Lumpur, to his grandfathers' treacherous boat journeys to
Malaysia from mainland China in the 1920s, Aw weaves together
stories of insiders and outsiders, images from rural villages to
megacity night clubs, and voices in a dizzying variety of
languages, dialects, and slangs, to create an intricate and
astoundingly vivid portrait of a place caught between the
fast-approaching future and a past that won't let go.
'Edouard Louis is one of the most important literary voices of his
generation' Guardian Everything started with a photo. To see her
free, hurtling fulsomely towards the future, made me think back to
the life she shared with my father. Seeing the photo reminded me
that those twenty years of devastation were not anything natural
but were the result of external forces - society, masculinity, my
father - and that things could have been otherwise. One day,
Edouard Louis finds a photograph of his mother from twenty years
ago. A picture of a happy young woman, full of hopes and dreams.
Growing up, Edouard only knew his mother's sadness, as she found
herself trapped in the humdrum life of a housewife, and her
struggles against the dominant world of men. What happened in those
years since the photo was taken? Then, at the age of forty-five,
his mother frees herself from this oppression. She leaves her
husband and her old life behind, to start a new one in Paris. A
Woman's Battles and Transformations is Edouard Louis's most tender
book yet. It reckons with the cruel systems that govern our lives,
with politics and power - and with the possibility of escape. It is
an exquisite and loving portrait of a mother, and an honouring of
her self-discovery and liberation as she chooses to live on her own
terms. Translated from the French by Tash Aw
Longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, the overlapping lives of
five newcomers to China's most dynamic city are the subject of this
kaleidoscopic novel. Welcome to Shanghai. A restless metropolis
where old traditions collide with new ambitions - a place where
anything can happen and anyone can become Somebody. Golddigger,
property magnate, pop star, entrepreneur and guru: five newcomers
are lured by the promise of making fortunes and remaking
identities. But they find their lives converging in unpredictable
ways, as the Five Star Billionaire's lessons for success wreak
havoc. For in a land where dreams may come true, nothing is ever
quite as it seems...
From the author of the internationally acclaimed, Whitbread
Award-winning 'The Harmony Silk Factory' comes an enthralling new
novel that evokes an exotic yet turbulent and often frightening
world. Sixteen-year-old Adam is an orphan three times over. He and
his older brother, Johan, were abandoned by their mother as
children; he watched as Johan was adopted and taken away by a
wealthy couple; and he had to hide when Karl, the Dutch man who
raised him, was arrested by soldiers during Sukarno's drive to
purge 1960s Indonesia of its colonial past. Adam sets out on a
quest to find Karl, but all he has to guide him are some old photos
and letters, which send him to the colourful, dangerous capital,
Jakarta. Johan, meanwhile, is living a seemingly carefree,
privileged life in Malaysia, but is careening out of control,
unable to forget the long-ago betrayal of his helpless, trusting
brother. 'Map of the Invisible World' is a masterful novel, and
confirms Tash Aw as one of the most exciting young writers at work
today.
A landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's most exciting new
writers: The Harmony Silk Factory is a devastating love story set
against the turmoil of mid-twentieth century Malaysia. Set in
Malaysia in the 1930s and 40s, with the rumbling of the Second
World War in the background and the Japanese about to invade, The
Harmony Silk Factory is the story of four people: Johnny, an
infamous Chinaman - a salesman, a fraudster, possibly a murderer -
whose shop house, The Harmony Silk Factory, he uses as a front for
his illegal businesses; Snow Soong, the beautiful daughter of one
of the Kinta Valley's most prominent families, who dies giving
birth to one of the novel's narrators; Kunichika, a Japanese
officer who loves Snow too; and an Englishman, Peter Wormwood, who
went to Malaysia like many English but never came back, who also
loved Snow to the end of his life. A journey the four of them take
into the jungle has a devastating effect on all of them, and
brilliantly exposes the cultural tensions of the era. Haunting,
highly original, The Harmony Silk Factory is suspenseful to the
last page.
Édouard Louis is one of the most important literary voices of his
generation' Guardian One day, Édouard Louis finds a photograph of
his mother from twenty years ago: a happy young woman, full of
hopes and dreams. But growing up, Édouard only knew his mother's
sadness - what happened in those years since the photo was taken?
Then, at the age of forty-five, Édouard's mother frees herself
from this life of oppression, to start a new one in Paris. A
Woman's Battles and Transformations reckons with the cruel systems
that govern our lives - and with the possibility of escape. It is a
tender portrait of a mother, and an honouring of her self-discovery
as she chooses to live on her own terms. 'Tash Aw's sensitive
translation captures the vividness of Louis's voice... Movingly,
the book demonstrates the pain that moving from one social class to
another entails' Times Literary Supplement 'A tenderness of
observation' New York Times 'Incandescent...Louis's most hopeful
book to date' Los Angeles Times Translated from the French by Tash
Aw
Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, and Anthony Burgess have
shaped our perceptions of Malaysia. In Tash Aw, we now have an
authentic Malaysian voice that remaps this literary landscape.
"The Harmony Silk Factory "traces the story of textile merchant
Johnny Lim, a Chinese peasant living in British Malaya in the first
half of the twentieth century. Johnny's factory is the most
impressive structure in the region, and to the inhabitants of the
Kinta Valley Johnny is a hero--a Communist who fought the Japanese
when they invaded, ready to sacrifice his life for the welfare of
his people. But to his son, Jasper, Johnny is a crook and a
collaborator who betrayed the very people he pretended to serve,
and the Harmony Silk Factory is merely a front for his father's
illegal businesses. This debut novel from Tash Aw gives us an
exquisitely written look into another culture at a moment of
crisis.
"The Harmony Silk Factory" won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award
and also made it to the 2005 Man Booker longlist.
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