April 2009

Aw Struck

Meet the award-winning Asian author who’s as sought after in London’s book fairs as he is in Singapore and Malaysia

INTERVIEW ANNE LOH

Taipei-born, Malaysia-bred and London-based, Tash Aw’s first book The Harmony Silk Factory took him five years to complete. He wrote it between training and working as a lawyer on weekends and evenings, and it has been critically acclaimed, winning him both the Whitbread Best First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Novel Award.

Tell us about your second novel Map of the Invisible World.
It’s the story of two orphaned brothers in Indonesia in the 1960s, who are separated at a very young age. One remains in Indonesia where he is adopted by a Dutch painter and lives a very simple and idyllic life; the other is taken to Kuala Lumpur to live with a rich Malaysian family, and leads a reckless, hedonistic, self-destructive lifestyle. But now they are in their late teens, almost men, and Indonesia is becoming increasingly unstable in the last year of Sukarno’s rule – his famous Year of Living Dangerously, and the brothers’ lives are poised on the edge of great change.

Was it an easier creative process compared to your first, The Harmony Silk Factory?
It was about a million times more difficult! When you write your first novel, you’re writing in a blissful vacuum. The stress and anxiety you face is entirely creative and internal. With the second novel, you’ve already been exposed to the world, and it takes a lot more mental and emotional energy to shut out the voices of your readers and all the other external influences in order to rebuild that creative bubble around you. I’d assumed that having written one novel, I’d be better prepared for the second. Which is nonsense, because I basically felt as if I’d learnt nothing at all from writing The Harmony Silk Factory.

When you return to Asia for a visit, what are your favourite things to do?
I eat — copiously and with much determination. I try and spend a few days in Penang, where there’s some of the best eating in the world. Otherwise I make sure I stop over in Bangkok, where the eating is just as good, though perhaps not quite as varied. And then I waddle off to a beach and pretend that a few days’ swimming can burn off the laksa and rojak clinging to my arteries. I might spend some time in Jakarta where some of the best bars and restaurants in South-East Asia are. And if I need some quiet time, I rent a small house on the west coast of Bali, far from the madding crowd.

Which authors do you enjoy?
I enjoy Nabokov for his inventiveness and use of language, Tolstoy for his perfection, Faulkner for the raw power of his novels. Among living writers I enjoy Ishiguro for the unpredictable beauty and sadness of his prose, Colm Toibin for his sparseness and loneliness; and Vikram Seth for the pure joy that leaps off the page.

What else have you got brewing at the moment?
I’m playing with an idea for a film script, working on a couple of short stories and slowly putting together ideas for my third novel. I’m just enjoying not having to write a novel for the moment.

Map of the Invisible World will be released in May, by HarperCollins.