... for our Malaysians published overseas.Twan Eng passed me a copy of The Elliott Bay Book Company's Review of Books for Spring 2008 (left)* which has one review stacked on top of the other "striking debut" novel. Both Twan and Preeta read at the bookstore, within a week of each other. Preeta describes it as
... a wonderful independent bookstore -- miles and miles of books!and fills me with envy that I can't hop over there and see for myself. She also says that she enjoyed meeting Rick Simonson, who wrote both reviews.
Evening is the Whole Day is reviewed by Lim Soon Heng in Time Out (right)* this month :Samarasan has successfully written perhaps the best English language novel from our shores ...says he.
(My interview with Preeta appears in the next issue of Quill, and will be online later.)
But I'm actually raising this cheer for a hatrick of authors. Am now completely hooked by Chew-Siah Tei's Little Hut of Leaping Fishes - and it's magical!
Chew-Siah's novel will be out next month. Preeta's novel is now out in both the US and due to be published in the UK next month, so expect it in the shops some time soon. Twan Eng's book should be here in mass-market paperback very soon.
(* Click to bring the pages up to full size.)
6 comments:
Things were so much simpler in the 1960s, whether we are talking about pop music or fiction. You waited for the next Beatles LP or the next novel by Iris Murdoch (well, I did, at any rate!)and everything seemed to be manageable and orderly. Since then the music and publishing scenes have exploded...how can one ever keep up with it all? I threw in the towel some time ago...I don't read anybody's fiction any more and in the past few years I have sold for a song, given away, and even thrown away I don't know how many books. And now I am in the process of selling off virtually my entire CD collection....
haha john - you really have joined old codgerdom! don't you remember those dull old people in-my-daying when you were a kid? sure things are more complicated, but what i've blogged here is something quite simple to grasp - authors from here are making it there.
Sorry, I'm always doing this, tagging on a 'general' comment which is irrelevant to the blog concerned. I was thinking of previous blogs of yours in which you expressed frustration at not having the time to read all that you wanted to read or that you felt you ought to read!
now what you're saying makes sense. and yes, you're right. this feeling of pressure comes from the way the industry has changed -so much more is publicised. maybe there's pressure too because of the information overload about books.
sometimes all i want to do is shut out the noise about the latest published stuff and just enjoy reading the books i've stored up.
Preeta gets rave reviews from Amazon readers!
wow yes! and all of them thoroughly deserved. wish i could put my own review up but can't until it hits print - but this is my favourite book of the year so far.
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