Tash Aw was born in Taipei, in the Republic of China, andbrought up in Malaysia. He moved to England in his teens andnow lives in London. He is the author of ‘The Harmony Silk Factory’, which was the winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and ‘Map of the Invisible World’. His most recent novel, ‘Five Star Billionaire’, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013.
'Tash Aw presents a world as timeless as the worlds brought to us by Turgenev and V. S. Naipaul, and yet catches the subtle and unstoppable changes each generation faces. Reflecting the human entanglements that come with home, land, and homeland, The South is a shimmeringly intelligent and elegiacally intimate novel' Yiyun Li, author of Wednesday's Child ‘Tash Aw’s The South is a mesmerizing tale of love, courage, and endurance. Like any significant novel, it’s also infused with humour, longing, and other aspects of humanity too subtle and pervasive to be named by me. And, like any significant novel, it’s both heartbreaking and joyful’ Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and Day 'The South is a sublime novel from one of the most important writers of our present' Édouard Louis, author of The End of Eddy and Change 'Everything about this novel is heartstoppingly vivid: its physical and emotional and social landscapes are rendered in sumptuous, shocking detail, while its meditations on desire and family are ecstatic and devastating all at once. It's exquisite' Oisín McKenna, author of Evenings and Weekends