Praise

      From the reviews of The Harmony Silk Factory:

      ‘Beguiling … The vice-like grip of the dead, the paper-thin ties of the living: many compelling themes are braided into this original, haunting novel. Aw picks at the knots in relationships, and in Malaysia’s history, to unravel strands of illumination. Yet there are several loose ends from which readers must spin their own stories. It is these frayed seams, these broken ties – the constant clutching after, yet eluding of connection – that exert the most powerful emotional pull’

       Independent

      ‘Absorbing … a rich, intense novel … The strength of Tash Aw’s writing can be seen in the three narratives. Each voice is distinct and each offers a subtly different viewpoint, remaking the material afresh … The beauty and danger of nature are everywhere in this delicately drawn novel’

       TLS

      ‘Bewitchingly written and gracefully assured … The story Aw tells is mercilessly gripping and his prose is lucid, uncluttered, beautiful … Aw orchestrates a graceful ballet of dissonances and congruences, of echoes and discords’

      NEEL MUKHERJEE, The Times

      ‘This is a serious, gripping, ambitious first novel … Aw knows the route to a reader’s mind – first, through the ear – through whispered disclosures of the heart … The messy menage of jealousies and fatalistic fears is superbly accrued … Here, in this novel where so much is told, but at an angle, and more is concealed, the truth is a chimera, a character in itself. In less gifted hands it would all have imploded. But Tash Aw sings it like a chorus, in perfect pitch, in a book to be prized’

      TOM ADAIR, Scotsman

      ‘This book begins with such brio that Tash Aw’s second outing will be eagerly awaited’

      MAGGIE GEE, Sunday Times

      ‘Tash Aw’s striking debut is as elusive as it is exotic. Beginning in playful and indeed almost picaresque mood, The Harmony Silk Factory evolves into a novel of quiet regret and long suppressed pain. Its three narrators speak with distinctive and compelling voices. Aw is a skilled and sensitive writer’

       Daily Mail

      ‘A suspense-laden colonial saga set in Thirties and Forties Malaysia, full of English Patient-style riffs’

       Tatler

      ‘He writes with what seems like effortless fluidity’

      ALFRED HICKLING, Guardian

      ‘A novel that metamorphoses seamlessly from quest to confession’

      HEPHZIBAH ANDERSON, Observer

      ‘This beautifully constructed debut novel melds different narratives as it looks back through time … Author Tash Aw writes with an assurance that belies his 29 years. His prose is clear and descriptive, yet it changes deftly in character as the narrative view changes’

       Sunday Business Post