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Conrad, Maugham, and Burgess have shaped our perceptions of Malaysia. Now, with The Harmony Silk Factory, we have an authentic Malaysian voice that remaps this literary landscape. Through his examination of a mysterious and larger than life character-hero or traitor?-Tash Aw gives us an exquisitely written look into another culture at a moment of crisis.
Costa Book Awards, 2005
"Via Aw's fast-moving prose and shimmering dialogue, which has an odd, affecting noirish manner, three different accounts of Johnny Lim and varying views of historic and personal reality unfold while the Japanese invade, the Communist Party gathers momentum, and alliances are made and broken." - Booklist.
"The most boisterous and enjoyable thread of this story belongs to Peter, with whose chipper English patter Aw, oddly enough, seems most at home." - Publishers Weekly.
"Atmospherics substitute for credible characterization in this Malaysian writer's sluggish, awkward account of a man's many selves." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about The Harmony Silk Factory was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tash Aw is the author of four novels, including We, the Survivors, and a memoir of a Chinese-Malaysian family, Strangers on a Pier, both finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His work has also won the Whitbread and Commonwealth Prizes, an O. Henry Award and twice been longlisted for the MAN Booker Prize. His fiction has been translated into 23 languages.
Name Pronunciation
Tash Aw: "Tash" rhymes with "ash." "Aw" like the word "awe."
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