Malaysian writers make their mark

What great news to see a Malaysian writer on the short list for the illustrious Man Booker Prize.

Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists is one of six novels up for the annual accolade celebrating the best English-language books of the year.

Eng's story chronicles the chance meeting of a young law graduate and the owner of the only Japanese garden in Malaya during the Japanese occupation of the country. In 1951, the Chinese-Malaysian student, a survivor of the Japanese camps during the war, gets the garden's creator, a secretive Japanese man, to accept her as an apprentice. Soon, the surrounding jungle begins to reveal its secrets in a book steeped with history, politics and personal experience.

It has been rare to hear about Malaysian authors, at least in the Western media, and the inclusion of Eng's work on the Booker short list marks a coming-of-age for the country's writers.

Buttressed between Thailand and Indonesia, Malaysia could be considered Southeast Asia's overlooked third sister. A country of roughly 28 million, which gained full independence from Britain in 1963, it's a multi-ethnic stew of Chinese, Malays, Tamils and native peoples.

For years, the only news out of Malaysia was about orangutans, logging in the rainforest and religious fundamentalism.

Its arts culture was rarely in the ether. That is, until 2005 when Tash Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory got posted on long lists for some major prizes including the Booker and the Whitbread. It nabbed the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel - Asia Pacific Region and two years later, it hit the long list of the International Impac Dublin Award.

Aw's second novel, Map of the Invisible World, was also published to acclaim in 2009.

Studied law

Aw, who studied law at the University of Cambridge in England, now calls London home. He does work for the BBC and also writes short stories.

The author, who grew up in the capital of Kuala Lumpur, told the Malaysian Star in 2005 that he studied law "just in case I failed at writing but writing is exactly what I wanted to do." He eventually completed a creative writing degree at the University of East Anglia.

Malaysian author Tash Aw's 'The Harmony Silk Factory' was longlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize. (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Interesting to note that Aw's first novel and Eng's current book both have storylines that harken to the Second World War and the Japanese occupation and Malaysia's British past. These are key events that have shaped many Malaysians of a certain age and continue to have repercussions in present-day.

Eng's inclusion this year on the Booker list also seems to be part of a wave of internationalist fervor among book juries - selecting works that have international flavour. Canada's Giller Prize long list for 2012 included several novels that took place in other countries including Kim Thuy's Ru which is set in Saigon, Malaysia and Quebec. This year's Booker short list included Narcopolis, set in India's opium dens, by Jeet Thayi.

This is Eng's second run at the Booker. The writer's 2007 novel, The Gift of Rain, was long-listed and was set in Penang in the years before and during the Japanese occupation. It featured a half Chinese, half British teenager and his friendship with a Japanese diplomat.

The Gift of Rain, hailed as a "rich, absorbing epic" by The London Times, was translated in into Romanian, Czech, Serbian, Greek, Spanish and Italian.

'Lost in memory'

On his website, Eng says the Second World War has been lost in memory in Malaysia: "Malaysians are a forgiving - or forgetful - lot. The people who lived through the Japanese Occupation have died or are growing older now, and the younger people actually have very little knowledge of it... Many of my friends in Malaysia told me, after reading [The Gift of Rain], that they hadn't been aware of quite a lot of the events during the war. It's different in the UK and Australia, where the returning veterans have written memoirs and books on the subject."

Also intriguing to note that both writers, in their late 30s now, have law backgrounds. Eng worked as an intellectual property lawyer. Aw has said that he gets annoyed at the stereotypical image of a "wild-eyed novelist."

"Would-be writers are practical and usually work to survive in ordinary jobs," he told the Star newspaper.

"Of course, you get the odd flamboyant writer who's insecure inside and hides it under a grand personality. That's just false confidence and they come across as wankers."

- June Chua