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Tash Aw at VIWF 2009
By Literary Correspondent Sara Chang
I am excited to announce that Tash Aw will be at this year's annual Vancouver International Writers' Festival. Aw has had two successful novels, The Harmony Silk Factory, which won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award, as well as the Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region Best First Book) and Map of the Invisible World , which is his most recently published piece of work.
Map of the Invisible World contains a unique and fascinating storyline and has been receiving rave reviews since its release. The novel is set in Indonesia and Malaysia in the mid-1960s:
In the forefront, we have Adam's quest to find Karl: a Dutch Indonesian artist who has stayed after independence to help rebuild the new country. He adopts the orphan Adam who is distinguished by his "neutral Indo-Malay features". They live on the Indonesian island of Perdo, shrouded in legends and myths. Karl's distaste for colonialism is so strong that he bans Dutch in his house: "it's the language of oppression". One should not grow up absorbing the culture of a country that has colonised one's own. "We are independent now; we need our own culture." From: independent.co.uk
Aw himself has a special cultural history and his experiences have no doubt contributed to his interest in culture, as showcased in the content of his work. Aw's parents are Malaysian but he was born in Taipei. At age 2, he and his family returned to Malaysia where Aw grew up in Kuala Lumpur. When he was 18, he moved to England to attend university. Aw resides in London today.
Aw will be co-hosting Event 51 on Saturday, October 24 with other writers. The event is appropriately titled Dig Deep, as the authors aim to discuss the historical research behind their novels, the skills required behind the coalition of imagination and fact, as well as the importance of strict attention to detail when it comes to novels of such an intriguing genre.
Event 51 is certainly worth attending for anyone who is curious about how writers collate facts and then transform history into beautiful stories. And if not for the inner writer, Tash Aw is a remarkable individual who will surely inspire your love for history and fiction.
More:
Coming soon: My review of Tash Aw's Map of the Invisible World | Read an exclusive review of Tash's book from The Guardian here| YouTube interview with Tash Aw (by BookLounge) after the jump.
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September 20, 2009 at 3:00 PM
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