Tash Aw
publisher
Spiegel and Grau
format
Hardcover
pages
336
Frank Delaney
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Margot Livesey
American Dervish
Ayad Akhtar
Time and Again
Jack Finney
MAP OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD by Tash Aw is a worthy successor to his debut novel, THE HARMONY SILK FACTORY, winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award. MAP OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD is the masterly, psychologically rich tale of three lives indelibly marked by the past-theirs and Indonesia's.
Sixteen year old Adam is an orphan three times over. He and his brother Johan were abandoned by their mother as children; then Adam watched as Johan was adopted and taken away by a wealthy couple. Now Adam is hiding because Karl, the man who raised him - and who is Dutch but long ago turned his back on the country of his ancestors - has been arrested by soldiers during Sukarno's drive to purge 1960's Indonesia of its colonial past. All Adam has to guide him in his quest to find Karl are some old photos and letters, which send him to the colorful, dangerous capital, Jakarta, and to Margaret, an American whose own past is bound up with Karl's. Soon both have embarked on journeys of discovery that seem destined to turn tragic.
Woven hauntingly into this page-turning story is the voice of Johan, living a seemingly carefree, privileged life in Malaysia, but one that is careening out of control as he struggles to forget his long ago betrayal of his helpless, trusting brother. This novel is a master class in the art of narrative; Aw is telling a story and all the while layering the history and pulling the pieces together in this epic story of loss and identity that mirrors the struggles of the young Indonesia in which it takes place.
About the Author
Tash Aw, whose full name is Aw Ta-Shi (Simplified Chinese: 歐大旭; born 4 October 1971) is a Malaysian writer currently living in London.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, to Malaysian parents, he grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before moving to England in his teens. He studied law at the University of Cambridge and at the University of Warwick and then moved to London to write. After graduating he worked at a number of jobs, including as a lawyer for four years whilst writing his debut novel, which he completed during the creative writing course at the University of East Anglia.
His first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory, was published in 2005. After Malaysian journalists reported that he had been paid over £500,000 for the novel, The Star and The New Straits Times called him the "RM3.5 million man", and local interest in his book deal continues today, even though the novelist himself has consistently denied the size of this advance, preferring to talk about the novel, which was longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award as well as the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Asia Pacific region). It also made it to the long-list of the world's prestigious 2007 International Impac Dublin Award and the Guardian First Book Prize. It has thus far been translated into twenty languages. Aw cites his literary influences as Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, Anthony Burgess, William Faulkner and Gustave Flaubert.
His second novel, titled Map of the Invisible World, was released in May 2009.
Based on royalties as well as prizes, Aw is the most successful Malaysian writer of recent years. Following the announcement of the Booker longlist, the Whitbread Award and his Commonwealth Writers' Prize award, he became a celebrity in Malaysia and Singapore, and is now one of the most respected literary figures in Southeast Asia.
Beyond the book
Review
A book full of immense intelligence and empathy . . . a complex drama
of private relationships . . . While Aw's prose remains as luminous as
in his debut novel . . . there is greater emotional heft in his new
work . . . reaching an unbearably moving climax."—Time
"A
worthy successor to The Harmony Silk Factory . . . Aw handles both
political upheaval and the personal trauma it generates with
considerable skill and verve. . . . His prose is vividly lyrical. . . .
Clearly, Aw has bags of talent."—The Independent, UK
"Buoyant,
limber, confidently told . . . Long before its cliffhanger ending, what
is revealed is a book embodying huge ambition, jostling with love,
betrayal and guilt, all set poignantly and subtly against the politics
of turmoil in post-colonial Indonesia circa 1964."—The Scotsman
"Breathtaking . . . Map of the Invisible World drops you on the streets of Jakarta and floods your senses with impending doom."—Toronto Star
"This
exquisite and haunting second novel from Aw follows a vibrant cast
searching for a sense of home during the political upheaval of 1960s
Indonesia…Well-paced and gorgeously written, this epic story of loss
and identity mirrors the struggles of the young Indonesia in which it
takes place."—Publishers Weekly, starred review