Twan Eng's Booker Update

Booker season continues and I'm at the starting line hoping to complete the marathon read so that opinions can be expressed before the shortlist is announced but don't think in all honesty I am going to get very far. A good book won't be rushed and I'm a slow reader anyway.

Fortunately some of the titles are already in the shops (I've checked with Kinokuniya and MPH) and I bet the rest can't be far behind. (But who but me, and maybe Animah, is mad enough to want the lot?) I've begun with Peter Ho Davies The Welsh Girl and am experiencing deja vu.

I've read the first two chapters before ... but where? All I can think is that they were in one of the British Council's New Writing collections, but not one i can find on my shelves. Can anyone enlighten me??

Anyway how's Twan Eng's book faring? It's still there in the amazon.co.uk bestseller list (the only Booker book in there apart from McEwan's, tipped as favourite!). It looks like the book is getting the popular vote.

The Telegraph has links to reviews of all 13 titles (the so-called "Booker Dozen") here.

Ed Lake reviews The Gift of Rain and has mixed feelings about it.

... the detached, aesthetic air, concentration on the visual and racy, episodic plotting -might perhaps have been more naturally realised in a decent Manga production.

Ouch! But he is taken with its:

... wistful and surprisingly earnest supernaturalism. Its characters all seem to have met in previous lives, to be haunted by ancient prophecies, or to be cursed to turn into one another. ... The bittersweet mood is heightened by the chinoiserie of the metaphorical palette - puddles resemble dragon scales, voices sound like wind-chimes, and even a kick in the kidneys produces calligraphy: a pain that flares "like red ink splashed on paper". The effect is almost psychotically tasteful.

Closer to home, Haliza Hashim Doyle writes about Twan Eng in the weekend edition of the Malay Mail.

And Twan himself sent me this more than enthusiastic review by Wilhem Snyman the Cape Town Post (no doubt his local paper for the time being!)

Set in the agonising years of Malaya’s occupation by the Japanese during World War II, from February 1942 to September 1945, Tan Twan Eng places at the centre of his story a young man, Philip Hutton, half English, half Chinese and his friendship with a high-ranking Japanese official before and during the brutal occupation of the island of Penang and its capital Georgetown.

As Tan Twan Eng has mentioned in interviews, he was influenced by many authors, not least of whom W. Somerset Maugham. One can discern the similarly deft objectivity and thorough characterization in Eng’s work as well.

The young protagonist, Philip, is torn between his patrician English world and his equally patrician Chinese world, with the result that somehow within himself he must coalesce these two seemingly contradictory worlds. Yet he remains an outsider looking into the British colonial establishment while at the same time being part of it, yet not fully accepted as he embraces his Chinese cultural heritage in tandem. Almost as a way of trying to resolve these inner conflicts he embarks on a dangerous relationship with the mysterious Endo-san, the enigmatic Japanese who hires an off-shore island from Philip’s father.

The relationship develops further as the mysteries and discipline of Japanese martial arts are imparted to the young Philip, as Endo-san becomes the young man’s spiritual guide and mentor. War clouds loom and Philip has to choose between his loyalty to his family and his relationship to someone rapidly being perceived as the enemy.

The war starts on December 7th 1941 as the Japanese forces attack Kota Bahru in northern Malaya , routing the ill-prepared dilly-dallying, shilly-shallying British forces before them. Soon Penang is invaded and the British residents – in a well-documented act of ignominy - rush for the ships to take them to Singapore , Ceylon and beyond, leaving the Chinese and Malays at the mercy of the arch-enemy, Japan . But Philip’s father and family remain and Philip has to choose where his loyalties lie and court censure as he collaborates with the Japanese in order to protect his family.

That’s the plot in simple terms – Tan Twan Eng has taken the raw material of history and woven a deeply moving tale of a man’s life. We meet Philip as an elderly man, recounting and explaining himself, while at the same time a tension is maintained throughout as we follow Philip’s anguish, ambiguity and ambivalence as he navigates his way through the treacherous waters of betrayal and loyalty and simply growing up in extraordinary times.

We meet Philip very much as Somerset Maugham writes of a certain kind of individual who has experienced much in life, in Gentleman in the Parlour: “They have a life in themselves that they keep apart, and there is a look in their eyes, as it were turned inwards, that informs us that this hidden life is the only one that signifies to them. And now and then their eyes betray a weariness with the social round into which hazard or the fear of seeming odd has for a moment forced them. They seem then to long for the monotonous solitude of some place of their predilection where they can be once more alone with the reality they have found”.

Tan Twan Eng reveals just such a man to us in the elderly Philip, while at the same time we join the young Philip on his perilous journey to self-awareness, to the spiritual mastery of his realm, a mastery ironically imparted to him by the one who used him to reveal military secrets to the Japanese.

A further level of significance of this seminal novel is that in the annals of Malaysian literature, and to use that hackneyed term, “post colonial” literature, The Gift of Rain is an example of literary maturity, where the contradictions of a colonial past are grafted onto a vision for the
present and the future, without rancour but rather with grace, stylistic elegance and compassion. The Gift of Rain is a coming to terms with the past, in this case with Malaysia ’s darkest hour when Malaya and its peoples were abandoned by their British colonial masters, who couldn’t protect her subjects, and delivered them to the wrath of the Japanese after an ill-conceived military defence.

Asked why he chose that period in history rather than contemporary Malaysia, Eng points out in that so little has been written about the war period in Malaya, especially by Malaysians. There are famous novels such as Tanamera and The Singapore Grip and of course Nevil Shute’s famous A Town Like Alice , but these were not written by Malaysian authors.

Significant too is that in Tan Twan Eng we have an author of a younger generation exploring the history of his country and writing for the present generation, dipping into the past and the present with effortless ease, all the while arresting one’s attention, maintaining suspense and recreating the bygone world of Penang with its rich and layered history. Penang, an entrepot of the British empire and founded by Francis Light in the 1780s, called peoples from all over Asia to its shores. Throughout Eng gives us the street names, (Armenia Street, Campbell Street, Bangkok Street etc) and various recipes associated with Penang’s Georgetown, taking the reader into Philip’s world, and making this novel not only an evocation of a personal odyssey, but also a homage to one of the world’s most inspiring historical settings. Says Eng:
“I was born in Penang and I’ve always wanted to write about Penang. People will argue that I don’t know the place as it was in the 1940s. But things like street names and places haven’t changed. If you wanted to write about Kuala Lumpur, everything has changed, buildings have been torn down. If you read The Gift of Rain and then take a trip to Penang all the places referred to are all still there. I suppose you could say I take a romantic, nostalgic view.”

However romantic or nostalgic the view Eng adopts, the novel reveals an emotional depth coupled with a heartfelt exploration of a dramatic moment in a community’s history and how war ravaged a hitherto relatively harmonious tranquility. A richly rewarding read.

But please dear world, he is not Mr. Eng, he is Mr. Tan! Please get his name right!!!!!

The Expat Malaysian Author

Silverfish's Raman sends his congrats to Tan Twan Eng but (typically!) uses his post to hit other local writers on the head.The question he raises though is interesting and very relevant:

While basking in the glow of vicarious glory, one cannot help but notice something: all these writers live outside the country. Why? Are Malaysians only able to get anything done when they leave the country? One can't help feeling that there are so many more successful Malaysians outside the country than inside.

... Is the lack of Malaysian writings the fault of our education system, then? Sure. Who hasn't heard of the many disturbing stories about our schools and the teachers? If it is, then how does one explain the writers mentioned above? Did they not attend the same local schools when they were here? Maybe they went overseas for their tertiary education, one might say. That could be it. But then how does that explain the 'failure' of those who come back from overseas after their education? No stimulus? No peers to push them on? It cannot be that we have no talent. The writers mentioned above were born here too.

So what's your take on this?

I'd say first, the situation is nowhere near as bleak as Raman makes out. There is some very good local writing talent, much of it young, and some very interesting work being produced ... as anyone who has been to the Seksan readings recently can tell you. (I can tell you of others who have done my course, and others whom I know through the blogs.)

What is lacking is the follow-through, the getting manuscripts actually finished and in marketable form and then out to publishers. (And here Raman is right, I think.)

Perhaps there is a crisis of faith too ... one that I hope the success of our local-authors-made-good-overseas can help to the writing community here to overcome, by example, and by involvement. (Kudos to Beth Yahp who comes back and runs courses, to Tash who took the trouble to run workshops at the litfest, to all those who share their knowledge and experience via blogs, published articles, and writer gatherings.)

So why do these award winning authors live outside the country? I posted a reply on Raman's blog and will expand on it a bit here. Here are some of the factors I can identify, although for most authors it will be a combination of things, of course:

Some go for education (boarding school, tertiary education) and stay on for the better job opportunities or because there feels like home in a way that Malaysian doesn't.

Some stay overseas for personal reasons. Love is the great kidnapper of Malaysian talent. And if you choose to marry, it's almost impossible to get a job for your spouse/partner in this country, let alone one that pays well.

Some go initially because of the availability of creative writing courses overseas and find themselves more recognised and encouraged as writers there. (There are a couple at UEA at the moment and one recently finished.)

Some go because ... and this is the controversial one that will have me clapped in irons ... Malaysia - let's face it - has a wonderful knack of stifling creativity.

In an environment where freedom of expression is seriously curtailed, where books and films are banned and restricted, where politicians take offense at satire, where Malay filmmakers and authors are harangued for letting the race down, where folks of different races do not feel they have an equal stake in the future of the country, where gays and lesbians face discrimination, where Malay women writers who dare write their mind have their websites hacked and receive death threats ... is it any wonder that authors look for a place where they can create without fear of censure? You see, everything is connected. One very prominent Malay writer told me that his most prized possession is his passport, and he's ready to leave if the current political and social environment becomes anymore restrictive.

Some become authors because they are overseas! Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain for example, is redolent with nostalgia for the country he was missing so badly while he was in South Africa. (Would the book have come out as well if homesickness were not factored into the mix?)

These authors of course publish overseas because the local market isn't big enough, and local publishers have so far proved ineffective at getting the work of local authors onto a world market. They also know that they will not be able to have a shot at most of the world's literary awards unless they live or publish overseas.

One reason that Malaysian authors are doing so well on the world stage now is that readers in the West are discovering a hunger for fiction from the Far-East. Some Malaysian authors resident in the US fit very nicely into the Asian-American fiction niche market (e.g. Tinling Choong, Shirley Lim).

One wonders anyway ... would these authors have got published here and if they had, what would have been the fate of their work?

Raman's wrong about one thing. Although The Gift of Rain was written in South Africa Tan Twan Eng was living and working (and writing!) here until April (around the time of the litfest) and had even gone into Raman's shop on occasion as a customer. He will be back next month and also is one of the authors representing Malaysia in Ubud. He ain't as overseas as you might think he is!

And anyway, should we be as hung up on hereness and thereness as Raman appears to be? Let's celebrate all Malaysian authors regardless of language, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political stance, or place of abode. And see each other as part of the same encouraging writing community.

(Am very anxious to hear your thoughts, especially if you are one of the overseas published! Do drop Raman a comment too.)

Postscript:

Deepika has posted a very good piece on her blog about this issue, along with excepts from her Channel News Asia interview with Tan Twan Eng:

Just when you think the congratulatory messages should be pouring in, the insider-outsider debate is back. ... At the risk of detracting from this post, I'll add that this isn't something that's unique to Malaysian writing, take a look at Indian writing and you can count the outsiders who have made it big globally. Authors who have moved outside and decided to write about their home reality will always tell you about the pining for home, the sound of rain, the heat, the dust, the sights, smells, sounds - all of which turn into a heightened sense of reality when you are away from home.

Later she quotes Twan's thoughts on being away from Malaysia when he wrote the book:

I think (being in Penang) wouldn’t have helped. I felt the emotions were stronger while I was away. The sort of longing for something which is familiar when you are sitting out there. Outside its almost a desert landscape and there you are longing for a tropical rainstorm. In Penang, it’s almost like part of your being. You are in the landscape, life has a pattern, going to the beach, walking, eating. It’s the absence that drove the book – absence in a good way.

As I said, authors often write because they are away!

The Gift of Reviews

Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain has been very well reviewed (with a couple of reservations!) by Su Lin Lewis in the Times Literary Supplement. The piece isn't available to link to online, so here 'tis:

The Japanese Occupation of South-east Asia during the Second World War has been described as the "forgotten wars" of "forgotten armies". The inhabitants of Malaya and Burma, abandoned by their fleeing British colonial rulers, endured great hardships which many did not survive.

Amitav Ghosh makes use of some of the stories of this period in his novel The Glass Palace (2000), in which the rich cast of characters in Rangoon and the rubber plantations of Malaya are connected to India through interracial marriage, migration and exile. In The Gift of Rain, Tan Twan Eng tells a similar tale, focusing on an individual coming-of-age story in a time of shattered innocence.

Philip is a half-Chinese, half-British teenager growing up in Penang, Britain's oldest possession in Malaya, a place where Malays, Chinese, Indians and Europeans live and work in relative social harmony. Tan captures the cosmopolitan spirit of the island on the eve of the Second World War, writing with the affection and insight of a born-and-bred Penangite. He shows that, despite the pretensions of the British ruling class, it was the Chinese tycoons, Malay aristocrats and British businessmen who really ran the island. Philip's father is one of those businessmen, the owner of a successful trading company and a beautiful mansion on the coast. Philip is his fourth child, the "half-caste" product of a second marriage to a Chinese woman which -like many inter- racial unions of the period -sent ripples of unease through European society.

When his mother dies, Philip isolates himself from the rest of his wholly British family, growing up alone until the arrival on his doorstep of a strange Japanese man.

Endo-San's intentions towards the island are shady, but his confidence, refinement and mastery of the Japanese martial art of aikido attract Philip, who becomes his devoted pupil. The boy undergoes a long period of training and learns the importance of trust and self-knowledge. Endo-San teaches him lessons that will help him eventually to reconnect with both sides of his family, British and Chinese, but they are also meant to prepare him for war.

The rediscovery of Philip's Chinese past through the compelling story of a "forgotten emperor" is one of the few entirely fictional moments in a narrative which otherwise depends on a historical backdrop. Connections made between Chinese, Japanese and even British culture, through spirituality and martial arts, suggest the search for a universal humanism underlying the violence of imperialism and war. The atrocities committed by the Japanese make Philip's wartime choices bear gravely on his soul, and his actions have dire consequences for his family and community. Forgiveness and healing come with the older Philip telling his tale to Endo-San's former sweetheart, a Japanese woman who has survived Hiroshima.

The Gift of Rain is a war novel with a personal odyssey at its heart, one that complicates the stark lines of right and wrong during wartime. Tan Twan Eng exposes the way in which the complexities of collaboration and resistance, and the duties to one's country, are made more difficult by a mixed-race heritage and the demands of friendship. There are perhaps too many maudlin allusions to butterflies in the text, and the professions of love between Philip, his teacher, and his family could have been handled with more sophistication, but the storytelling makes up for this, drawing the reader into a web of divided loyalties.

And here's another review/ interview from the South China Morning Post. (Click to enlarge.)

The novel is soon to have it's South African launch. (In marketing terms it's quite an advantage to belong to more than one place!)

Meanwhile many of my friends here are asking if there will be a mass market paperback edition?

(Pic taken at booksigning in a Borders branch, UK)

Celebrating Mr. Eng from Penarth

At least Starmag noticed we had a Malaysian on the Booker longlist! They reproduced the piece from the Guardian I linked to the other day and slipped into brackets an e-mail response from Tan Twan Eng:

It's an immense honour for a first-time novelist ... I received the news on Tuesday night and was completely stunned - I still am! I am thrilled to be in such esteemed company like McEwan and A.N.Wilson.

I'm also gratified that the judges are open to voices coming from South-East Asia. There is a huge pool of talented writers here waiting to be discovered by the rest of the world, with compelling stories to tell.

Meanwhile it's Booker silly season, and this year, thanks to Twan we feel we have a ringside seat.

Sam Jordison on the Guardian blog has decided to discuss one book from the list each week working down the list in alphabetical order, even though that means the final book will be discussed long after the prize is awarded!

Of course, given a name like Tan Twan Eng, of course the surname must be Eng (!), and therefore The Gift of Rain gets discussed in week 4!

(I remember Viz getting all humpfy in the comments on this blog one day about Malaysian Chinese authors switching round their names so the family name comes last e.g. Tinling Choong, Yang-May Ooi, but now you see how confused a western audience can be!)

This is not the only Chinese name that gives problems on the list: Sam Jordison finds Peter Ho Davies middle name "rather amusing" as he has a go at judging the longlisted books by their covers. Of The Gift of Rain he says:

I'm not sure what the butterflies and torn bits of wallpaper signify, and the red and gold type has unfortunate echoes of a cheap Chinese restaurant. All the same, the back-cover blurb about aikido and knowledge coming "at a terrible price" sounds exciting and I'm already biased in the book's favour as it's a product of one of the two independent publisher underdogs on the list.

(My favourite covers, by the way, are those for Lloyd Jones' Mr. Pip and Peter Ho Davies The Welsh Girl.)

And talking of Wales, did you know that The Gift of Rain is actually set ... ahem ... in Penarth?

Our Mr. Eng is learning exciting new things about his novel all the time!

MPH's Two-Way Tie and Other Stories

I guess most of you had forgotten all about the MPH-Alliance Short Story Competition. After all, the shortlist was revealed way back in July.

Well, the prize-giving was held on Saturday at Subang Parade, and I guess that everyone was surprised because it was a two-way tie between Booker-longlisted author Tan Twan Eng and complete newcomer, Ivan Yeo Mun Kit.

I was one of the six judges for the competition, and let me tell you that there was plenty of lively debate about all the shortlisted stories - but the panel was completely split over which one should win outright, hence the compromise. The sponsors were kind enough to donate one more top of the range laptop, and the prize-money was shared.


Left to right above : Ivan, Twan Eng's mum - Sally Tan, guest Mano Maniam who gave a very good speech on the importance of stories, Datuk Dr. Abdullah b Abdul Rahman, Director of the MPH Group of Companies, runner-up Shih-Li Kow, Zed Adams father (?), and Lee Eeleen. The other runner up, Vincent Foo Hiap Khian, could not attend the event - he lives in Sarawak and we were told that he is over-70. (So -hurray - it isn't just about young writers making a fiction debut.)

Tan Twan Eng's Some Things Will Remain is a heart-stopping drama in which a woman is forced into murder to keep her child, and its terrible climax contrasts sharply with the traquility and beauty of the setting. It asks important questions too about whether such a killing can ever be justified, and whether a person is ever truly able to make amends.

Ivan Yeo Mun Kit is a writer I am sure we will be hearing much more from in future after this promising start. All the judges loved the humour and the carefully observed detail in this story of a young man learning to drive and juggling the relationship with his “not girlfriend”. Ivan has a strong voice and has a great ear for dialogue. His characters were very well drawn. There was some disagreement among the judges about whether we liked the ending though. (But then disagreement is what makes the whole process interesting!)

I won't say any more here about the other stories beyond that I hope these writers will be encouraged to keep writing. (And I hope that others who didn't make the shortlist won't despair, there were some excellent near-misses, and other writers who show a lot of promise.)


The prize for the Teen category which went to the best story on the theme of Staying and Leaving went to Emily Jong. Again, congrats to all prize winners and I hope we are hearing more about you all soon.

It was nice to reconnect with friends at the event. Below is Shih-Li Kow who came with her son Jack, talking to Lim Soon Heng who was one of the judges of the teen prize. I also enjoyed meeting the members of Electric Minds Project, who put on an entertaining and well-acted sketch for us.


The biggest congrats of the day I think must go to MPH for organising this very much needed competition to give local writers something concrete to aim for, and to Alliance Bank for supporting it. I do hope it returns next year!

Twan Eng at Kinokuniya

I’m thrilled to bits when author Tan Twan Eng asks me to moderate his meet-the author session at Kinokuniya on April 8^th.   The bookstore is in any case Tan’s home away from home when he is back in KL.   I joke with him about which is greater, the amount earned in royalties from his novels or the amount he has spent here over the years.  He laughs and agrees it’s probably the latter, and knowing his voracious reading habit, I can well believe him.

Penang-born Tan’s first novel The Gift of Rain has been a success in every meaning of the word – critically acclaimed, it was also longlisted for the Man Booker which is one of the world’s most important literary prizes, and it has also been a very popular novel with readers on both sides of the Atlantic. (A barometer of this is reader ratings on Amazon where it has never fallen below 4.5.)  The popularity of the book in the US though, took Tan completely by surprise, he says.

 It took Tan three years to write his second novel The Garden of Evening Mists which is set in Malaya during the communist insurgency.   It tells the story of lawyer Yun Ling Teoh, who though scarred by her wartime experiences in a Japanese camp, nonetheless decides to fulfill her promise to her dead sister to build a Japanese garden.  She becomes the apprentice of a man who was once gardener to the Emperor of Japan, and who has built his garden in Cameron Highlands.

There’s actually a phenomenon known as “second novel syndrome” where writers get terrific performance anxiety about writing a follow-up to a successful novel.  Was this the case with Tan?

 He agrees: “When you write a first novel you give everything that you have, basically you dry the well, and there’s nothing left for the second novel. Every book, I’m starting to suspect, will get harder and harder to write and it’s not something I’m looking forward to.”

The great American Don DeLillo once said a first novel comes to the writer as a gift and he doesn't necessarily know how he wrote it:  it's the second novel that teaches him how to write.   Tan feels (and I’d completely agree) that his writing is much more controlled in this second novel, the plot more carefully shaped,  and while the descriptions  of place are still gorgeous (especially those of the garden)  they draw attention to themselves far less .   

Tan confesses that he has become more interested in gardening in recent years and the idea for the novel came from when he actually met someone who had been gardener of the Emperor of Japan at a social gathering in Johannesburg.  Although they couldn’t really communicate because of the language barrier, the very job title provided the spark of inspiration, and Tan says “I had various elements floating around already and this tied them all together”. 

Tan confesses that he has become more interested in gardening in recent years.  Because he wanted to work with a Japanese garden this meant that the setting for the novel would have to be one of Malaya’s hill resorts, and only Cameron highlands was sufficiently developed at the time the book is set.  He was also fascinated, he says by the myth of Jim Thompson, the Thai silk baron who went missing in Cameron highlands in 1967. (Indeed Thompson makes a cameo appearance in the book.)

Some of the scenes in the novel are so vividly realized, it is like stepping back into the Malaya of that era. Tan described how he researched the novel – drawing on contemporary accounts and on old photographs.  He said that one of the toughest jobs in writing a novel is to decide how much research should go in to the novel, and he found that he had to cut out a lot of his material for fear of boring his reader. 

I wondered how hard it was for Tan to write from the perspective of a woman.   He says that it is difficult because women in the 40s and 50s because they were subject to greater restrictions did not have as much liberty to move around as the men.   Tan also said that he found himself looking at women – how they sat, and trying to puzzle out the contents of their handbags!    

I pointed out to Tan that in both books he is very generous with plot.  There was so much incident packed into The Gift of Rain that I wasn’t sure how to classify the novel when I first read it – literary fiction or thriller?  I asked him how important he feels storytelling is to him.  He feels that there is a swingback in literary fiction with writers giving storytelling more importance, because “People getting tired of too much self-indulgence from a writer.” “You might have a lot of things to say but you really have to capture the reader’s attention and without story it’s difficult to get the reader turning the pages.”

 For me the part of the book I found the most moving was the stunning love story of the historian, Tatsuji, who had been a kamikaze pilot.  This part of the novel grew from the Tan’s short story Somewhere Above the Clouds (published in the Asian Literary Review in 2007).

I point out that while Tan never follows his characters into the bedroom but he has some ingenious ways to suggest the quality of their love making. Sex scenes can be notoriously difficult to write and there is of course the annual Bad Sex Award which must scare writers. “If you don’t do it well, it becomes laughable … like the act itself. “ Tan agrees. “I always skip the sex scenes in books. So when I’m writing I have no interest in describing it as well unless it’s really relevant – and most of the time it’s not. You’re more interested in showing the effect.”

There was very active participation from the audience at Kinokuniya – many of whom are fascinated to find out how an author works. 

Tan worked previously as a lawyer in KL, and we wanted to know what there is about the job that still influences him.  He says that one fall out is that he places great importance on clarity(as all lawyers must). If writing is not clear, the author is really cheating the reader. 

His work ethic shows the influence of his former career.  He treats writing as a job, makes sure he dresses neatly in a shirt before he begins because, he believes if you’re sloppy, then your thinking becomes sloppy. And he works more or less 9-5.  He confesses though that the internet is a bit distraction and says he often has to switch off his wi-fi.

But perhaps the best bit of advice for all of us who would one day like to be sitting signing out own books in Kinokuniya – is to just get the work done!

Twan Eng and Devika Bai and Little Egg Sandwiches

So yesterday the Saturday literary marathon in Bangsar, and I managed to last the distance. (Just!)

The first event was of course MPH's Breakfast Club bash at the Bangsar Village 2 branch. There was a very good turn out to meet authors Tan Twan Eng and D. Devika Bai.

A somewhat shy Twan Eng invited questions from the audience about The Gift of Rain, and got some thoughtful ones thrown in his direction.

One perennial question* came up: why are so many Malaysian novels set in the past, and set during the war rather than in present day Malaysia?

Twan answered that wartime is a period of great upheaval and gives the author plenty of conflict to write about. He also wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible - the Japanese occupation of Malaya being of course of great interest to an overseas audience as well.

Someone asked if he plotted the novel step-by-step and he answered that he knew where it began and ended but the journey between those points was uncharted.

D. Devika Bai was a school administrator in Rawang when she first started writing. she began with articles and then began her family saga The Flight of Swans which took her eight years to write. She says she tried to find a Malaysian publisher but was unable to.

She then sent the novel out to publishers overseas, side-stepping the conventional route of going via an agent. Whilst most publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, she was pleasantly surprised to receive helpful feedback from David Davidar at Penguin Books Canada.

The novel was finally published by Monsoon Books in Singapore.

A chapter of the book was published in one chapter was published in Dimsun (later relaunced as the Asian Literary Review) edited by Nury Vittachi. The novel was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.

She is currently working on a novel called Like the Lion Be (I heard it first as Like the Lion Bee and wondered what kind of creature that was!) which is about slavery in SE Asia and told through the eyes of an Indian "gypsy" girl.

One point she made which I feel needs to be kicked around a bit (but wasn't at the time):

You can't tell it like it is in Malaysia.

My thought here is: you can't, or you won't because you are afraid to? And how will any novelist know what those limits are if no-one is prepared to challenge them? (But can we in fairness expect authors to stick their necks out when the renumeration for writing a novel is so scant?)

We broke for sandwiches and snacks and lots of lots of chat and photos and friendship. I do enjoy these mornings!

*Note: You may remember that this issue came up so often on my and other blogs (it really seems to be an issue that that gnaws at the Malaysian reading public!) that Twan actually wrote a post about it for this blog some time back.

Twan on Booker Longlist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just now I flipped to the Guardian website, saw the news and then just burst into tears.

The Booker Prize longlist was announced last night.

And Tan Twan Eng's Gift of Rain is on there!!!! (How many exclamation marks can I get away with? Remember, this is probably the world's most prestigious literary prize.)

I'm so very happy for him. So very proud of him.

Happy for all of us too and feel like trotting out again that old saw - Malaysia Boleh!!!

Before I get too carried away and glurgacious, Sarah Crowne refers to this year's longlist as being "low-key" with:

... four first-time novelists and a near-total absence of literary stars

And there are only 13 titles this time rather than the 18-24 of previous years.

I am myself very surprised not to see Michael Ondaatje and Graham Swift on there. But McEwan makes it, and the other big name on the list is of course A.N. Wilson.

There is another author of course on the list with a Malaysian connection - Peter Ho Davies who has a Malaysian mum!

Here's the longlist in full:

• Darkmans by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)
• Self Help by Edward Docx (Picador)
• The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon)
• The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
• The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (Sceptre)
• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
• Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Viking)
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, (Jonathan Cape)
• What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn (Tindal Street)
• Consolation by Michael Redhill (William Heinemann)
• Animal's People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)
• Winnie & Wolf by AN Wilson (Hutchinson)

More about this later.

(By the way, sorry I'm a bit of a dozy blogger at the moment, and posting erratically. I've got a lot of work on and am enjoying it, but have less free time than before. Nevertheless, will do my best.)

Update:

I like what Deepika wrote. And Asian Literary Review editor, Nury Vittachi, confesses to being "blown away" by one of Twan's short stories ...

Longlist for the Poppies 2009

Popular Bookstores are running their Reader's Choice (for books in English) and Anugerah Pilihan Pembaca (for books in Malay) awards again this year. Kimmy of Popular was kind enough to send me a copy of the lists of nominees (based, I believe on sales instore) so I guess I have the scoop before the newspapers!

I will blog the Readers Choice award first, and here's the list which I have subdivided into categories, although there is just one overall prize. (Wouldn't it be nice to have more, so that we could celebrate different categories?) *

Fiction (Novels/Novellas) :

Preeta Samarasan - Evening is the Whole Day
Tunku Halim - Juriah's Song
Brian Gomez - Devil's Place
Tan Twan Eng - The Gift of Rain
Kuan Guat Choo - Mouse Clutching Winter Melon
Khoo Kheng-Hor - Nanyang : The Lure of Southern China to Lands of Opportunity and Danger

Fiction (Short Stories) :

Wena Poon - Lions in Winter
Robert Raymer - Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Matthew Thomas - Tales from the Court and other Stories

Non-Fiction :

Yvonne Lee - Vanity Drive: The Vagaries of Women's Vanity
Sheik Mustapha Shukor Al-Masrie - Reach for the Stars
Adeline Loh - Peeing in the Bush
Adibah Amin - Glimpses : Cameos of Malaysian Lives
Paddy Bowie - Datuk Teh Hong Pow : Banking Thoroughbred
Kee Thuan Chye : March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up
Tun Mahathir & Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad - Dr. Mahathir's Letters to World Leaders
Rustam A. Sani - Failed Nation? Concerns of a Malaysian Nationalist
Amir Muhammad - New Malaysian Essays 1
Awang Goneng - Growing Up in Terengganu

In case you're wondering, this year, unlike last, overseas published Malaysian authors have been included provided that their books were in mass market paperback during the qualifying period. Thus Chiew-Siah Tei's Little Hut of Leaping Fishes is expected to be on next year's list. Shih-Li Kow's collection of short stories, Ripples, wasn't published in time to qualify for this year's list but should make it for next.

It's a shame isn't it there is only one prize, with so much of interest on the list and so much diversity!

We have authors who have achieved acclaim for their work overseas and who have each been nominated for one the world's most prestigious literary prizes (Tan Twan Eng - Booker, Preeta Samarasan - Orange).

We have one Singaporean author (Wena Poon) eligible because she was published in Malaysia.

We have last year's winner Adibah Amin, coming back for another bite of the cherry.

We have one former prime minister.

We have two authors who have passed away since their books were written - Rustam A. Sani and Sheik Mustapha Shukor Al-Masrie who wrote about his brother Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha, Malaysia's first "astronaut" and died just one day before his brother landed from his voyage to the international space station.

Voting will be once again via the Star's Reads Monthly Supplement (though I'm not sure when that will be). The bookstore is organising promotions of the books and from June onwards, customers that visit POPULAR outlets will get 20% discount when they buy any of the nominated books. The winner will be announced at Bookfest @ Malaysia 2009.

Yes, it is a popularity contest and yes, in that sense it cannot be considered a serious literary award.

But it does shine the spotlight on local authors and create some conversation about their books, which cannot be at all a bad thing.

Congrats to all the listed authors and their publishers.

Postscript :

Sorry for misleading info. There are separate prizes for fiction and non-fiction, and three prizes in each category - which means 6 winners. Whee!!

Postscript 2 :

The question of whether Khoo Kheng-Hor's book is fiction or non-fiction comes up in the comments to this post. Shirley Ng of MPH forwarded me an interesting note about this from Khoo herself who says :

... my case stories from China were based on what my aunts told me about my grand-father ... If you want to categorize it under non-fiction then it is not entirely true. If it is fiction then it is not entirely true too. So what shall we call it?

I didn't notice on the initial list but Yvonne Lee's Vanity Drive has been categorised as fiction. Hmmm ... creative non-fiction okay, but ....

Ordeal by Novel?

Imagine having to read 110 novels in just a few months! Would that be pleasure or torture? Being such a slow reader, I'd be inclined to say the latter!

Starmag scoops an exclusive interview with Sir Howard Davies, chair of the Man Booker Prize, who shares his thoughts on choosing the longlist of titles:

Every (qualified) publisher is entitled to submit two novels published in the year, in addition to the automatic entries of former prizewinners and recently short listed authors. That rule applies both to major publishing houses like Jonathan Cape and to newer small companies like Myrmidon, which published The Gift of Rain by (Malaysia-born author) Tan Twan Eng. ... Then all publishers can submit an additional list of books they would like to have entered had they been allowed more choices. This year the judges selected about 20 more from that list, making a grand total of 110, ranging from Ian McEwan’s short novella On Chesil Beach with 166 small pages to Nicola Barker’s 836-page epic Darkmans. Oddly, both the shortest and the longest books this year made it to the long list.

He says that some very interesting themes emerged this year:

A lot of novelists are preoccupied with sex (I can just about remember why that might be). And this year there are a surprising number of themes that touch on infertility. Maybe that is an interesting phenomenon particularly in developed countries, where birth rates are low and in some cases the population is declining: not an issue in Malaysia, of course. There were also 14 novels that were either largely or substantially centred on World War II, from Thomas Keneally’s latest book about Allied raids on the Japanese fleet in Singapore in 1942 (The Widow and Her Hero), to a novel about the after effects of Hiroshima. Of these, two, by Tan Twan Eng and A.N. Wilson, made it through to the long list. Tan’s strong sense of place and his ability to handle dark themes in the Japanese occupation of Malaya appealed to us. The central character collaborates with the occupiers, but tries also to help the resistance. Wilson’s reflections on the influence of Wagner on Hitler and the origins of Nazism in 19th century philosophy are challenging and well written.

(Wonder why he did not also mention Peter Ho Davies The Welsh Girl which is also set during the Second World War?)

Davies also mentions the striking geographical diversity of the novels:

The long list includes one Canadian, a New Zealander, a Pakistani, an Indian based in India and one based in Wales, a Chinese Welshman and, of course, a Malaysian, alongside five British writers and an Irish woman. ... So Booker judging these days takes you on a world tour, from Toronto to Penang. In a rainy London summer, that proved to be a wonderful diversion.

The committee meets on Thursday to draw up the shortlist.

My Celeb Day

A couple of pictures taken today.

This is on the set of Venus at NTV 7 after the interview with Tan Twan Eng, show host Aishah Sinclair (the lady in red), and the other folks behind the show Grace Liew (next to her), and the producer, Wan Sariah Wan Jaafar.

The NTV7 interview turned out to be a lot of fun. Aishah called me "a celebrity blogger" which made me smile and want to say "Aiyoh, no lah". She was so relaxed and warm and made the whole thing go really easily.

Tan Twan Eng joined us on the sofa after the first segment to talk about his book, and other things we touched on were whether really Malaysians aren't readers, about the British Council Library closing and the work BC does in Malaysia, about a FIRSTWoRKS workshop she had a picture of, how I'd enjoyed being the first reader in Malaysia of The Gift of Rain and what I'd thought of the book.

After that I drove to PJ and went searching for The Seapark Brickhouse, which turned out to bein a not-terribly-glam area. But the moment you step inside this beautifully renovated single-storey terraced house you feel as if you have entered another world.

The simplicity and airiness and sense of outside-brought-inside reminded me of Seksan's gallery, and his firm have apparently been involved in the project. I loved the monochrome unclutteredness. Never mind the bed and breakfast it is supposed to be, I would like to live in this house.

I posed around for photos, striking some pretty strange poses - one or two in the bathroom which was my favourite room with frangipani trees (for heaven's sake) growing up through the centre of it and no ceiling but the sky.

You will see the results in the next copy of Quill.

A whole gang of friends was there, Eric, Janet and May Lee from MPH, Daphne, Twan, and Adeline Loh who has a book about her travels in Zambia called Peeing in the Bush coming out.

We ate chicken rice, drank teh-ice, talked books and authors, and laughed a lot. A perfect afternoon.

Up Penang Hill with Twan Eng

Whenever Hayato Endo, the Japanese aikido master and consular officer at the center of Tan Twan Eng's WW II–era novel The Gift of Rain, needs cardio (and a break from the stresses of international espionage), he hikes up Penang Hill. He forgoes the funicular because he wants "to feel the climb." Follow his three-hour tropical trudge from the Penang Botanic Gardens past British colonial mansions to the 2,723-ft. (833 m) summit, and every aching muscle in you will feel it too. The reward is a breathtaking view of Georgetown and the piratical Strait of Malacca. At the outdoor coffee shack 30 minutes below the peak, ask resting Chinese or Tamil retirees how often they make the climb. Should caffeine fail to boost you to the top, their answer will be the kick in the butt you've needed.


Tim Kindseth on 25 (More) Authentic Asian Experiences in Time.  The Gift of Rain is a great book for putting Penang (and hence Malaysia) on the map.

Twan Eng is interviewed on Eric's blog.  The author describes himself at the moment as :

... irritable, anxious, distracted, exhausted and tense ...

because he is trying to finish the first draft of his second novel. But he still finds time to talk at great length about the books he loves, and why reading is important. There are some great book recommendations here.

The novel has now been translated into many different language, but how often do we think about the translators or the stories about the translations? Here's a fascinating insight into how The Gift of Rain  into  came to be translated into Romanian. Translator Madalina Serban calls the novel :

... a story that transcends cultures and it relates to a very special part of my life.

Twan Eng Booktour

Another Malaysian author goes stateside to promote a novel.

Now that the American edition of The Gift of Rain is out, Tan Twan Eng is doing the bookstore and media rounds over there, and Rick Simonson of Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle gives an account of Twan Eng's first US reading on the Publisher's Weekly website.

Twan Eng - Guardian Blogged

Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain is reviewed on the Guardian blog by Sam Jordison who compares the writing first of all to Conrad, and then says:

... a more accurate comparison for the book could be to a Merchant Ivory film ... Only with far more martial arts and far less Helena Bonham Carter.

Jordison says he will be upset if the novel doesn't make the shortlist. Likewise.

We'll all know on Friday.

Jordison also reviews Edward Docx Self Help, another of the longlisted titles, but I don't dare even glance at the piece until I've read the novel ... and I'm still waiting for it to arrive here. Previously reviewed, Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl.

Actually I'm screaming with frustration. Why is there so little time between the longlist being announced and the shortlist? One month doesn't give readers sufficient time to buy (and afford!) and read and digest all the chosen books, and unless you do manage to tackle them all you can't really enter into the fun of comparing them or really have an opinion along with the judges, about what should win. (Course, normal sane people don't worry about such things.)

I'm now onto my fifth longlisted book, Indra Sinha's Animal's People which within the first forty pages has totally beguiled me. Twan Eng has some pretty stiff competition!

Searching the Past

The hand of destiny brought together two authors from opposite sides of the world who found they had a great deal in common in a panel discussion called Searching the Past, at the Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival. It was an extremely interesting discussion in which the two authors discovered that they had a lot of common ground.

Tan Twan Eng is of course Malaysian of Chinese descent, while Madeleine Thien has Malaysian-Chinese parents but lives in Vancouver.

Twan's novel is set in Penang, Thien's latest novel Certainty is set in Sandakan where her father grew up. Both set their novels during World War II and the Japanese invasion figures large. (She told us how her grandfather had worked for the Japanese and was taken away to be killed when her father was only 5 years old.) Her novel explores the theme of displacement.

Both books, as moderator Joanna Saville pointed out, are about human choices and about fate and destiny and how much we can control.

And both novels have won critical acclaim and have been serious contenders for prestigious literary prizes. Twan of course was Booker longlisted for The Gift of Rain, while Thien was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize for novels from the Pacific Rim for Certainty.

(You might also like to check out her previous books Simple Recipes (a collection of stories) and The Chinese Violin (a children's book).)


How difficult was it for them to carry out the research for their books?

Thien found it hard to obtain first hand information from her family, as they didn't want to talk about that period, so she came to Malaysia for two months in 1999.

Sandakan had been "bombed to bits in the war", she says, and so she found herself writing about a place that had essentially been lost.

But she didn't feel so strange going back - she still has family there, and her father had drawn a map for her from memory which enabled her to find her way around, and so she says there was a sense of entering the world of the novel. She found people in Sandakan willing to talk to her about that period of history: most hadn't been asked about their wartime experiences for so many years.

However, because she does not speak Hakka and Malay, so she always felt that she was at one remove from the people she interviewed. (This proved to be another area of similarity between the two authors, as Twan does not speak Mandarin or a Chinese dialect either.)

Twan said said that he did not need to do any specific research before starting the novel as he has always read a great deal about the period although the literature on the 2nd World War was written by the British rather than by the local inhabitants. And he said that that it was only in the older generation of Malaysians has he heard rancour against the Japanese for atrocities committed during the war.

He described Penang as a main character in the book, and said that he felt a need to record a part of the world that is so quickly changing.

Twan also explained how he had begun writing The Gift of Rain. He'd always felt that he wanted to write but finally had some time on his hands when he was doing his Masters in Shipping Law with the University of Cape Town. He originally set out to write what he says was
a 100 page short story about three minor characters whom he wanted to include in a much larger novel, but their story grew and grew until it became the present novel!

The novel was actually written on the edge of the desert in Kimberley, and his longing for rain in this arid landscape seeps into the opening pages so much you can almost smell the scent of it ...

Lost Gift!

Aiyoh MPH - so much for promoting local authors! Glenda has a very hard time finding The Gift of Rain:

Today I was in the MPH bookshop in Midvalley. I wanted to buy the book "The Gift of Rain" by Malaysian Author Tan Twan Eng, a novel set in war-torn Penang. It is published in UK, and has been reviewed, reasonably favourably, by the Times Literary Supplement. Seems like an author that Malaysia can be proud of, right?

And the bookstore was hung with posters saying: "Proud to be Malaysian". It was a "Buy Malaysian and get a discount" promo...

Now I know I am clueless. All I could remember was that it was by someone surnamed Tan, and I thought Eng was in his personal name. And I couldn't remember the name of the book, but I knew what the story was about and that it was published in UK recently. Should have been enough for them to recognise what book - surely Malaysian bookshops would want to promote that rare commodity, a Malaysian getting overseas attentions and kudos. How many have we had over the past 10 years? Enough to use all the fingers on one hand? And this was a 2007 publication. All told, I asked 4 assistants and they consulted 2 computers - nope, never heard of him or his book.

I eventually found it myself. And I scolded the shop assistants for not living up to their own promo. Tan, I hope they listened.

Do Your Chores First!

Seems that our latest overseas published author has been disrupting the domestic life of one of my favourite British libloggers. Dovegreyreader got sent an advanced copy of The Gift of Rain by new independent publisher Myrmidon:

Then I just sneaked a peek at the Tan Twan Eng and an hour later remembered that actually I'd been on my way to empty the dryer.

I have Twan much on the brain today as I have to get the review of his book finished and type up my interview with him for the first StarMag literary supplement appearing later in the month. Better stop messing about on this blog and actually get some work done!

Here's a pic of Twan, looking a tad serious. I snapped it at Starbucks in Borders at the Curve on Saturday.

Postscript

We would like Ang Lee to google his name and drop by this blog so that he knows that he is invited to make the film of this book!

Twan and Tash the Litera-nauts

I haven't blogged about a lot of great stuff in past issues of Off The Edge, partly I think because I feel so guilty about not having written anything for it in quite a while, other stuff getting in the way. (So sorry, Jason.)

This issue brings Ann Lee's piece about our two literary space pioneers, Tash Aw and Tan Twan Eng. (I'm sure you can work out which is which in the cartoon!) This piece, putting both authors and their work side by side was positively aching to be written.

And as Ann points out quite rightly, getting onto the Booker longlist is a far harder feat for Malaysians to achieve than being sent off into space:

After all, you can still pay for that to happen.

The astronaut analogy works very well, with Tash as:

... the Neil Armstrong of Malaysian authors hitting the high numbers of international readers.

As Ann notes too, it's a real shame that there has been no official acknowledgment of their achievement (a phone call from the PM would have been nice!), and the academic community haven't quite yet got round to highlighting their achievements either. Are their works too recent to be considered real literature, perhaps?

I enjoyed Ann's reviews of the two books very much, and found myself agreeing with much she said, as well as enjoying the way she writes. (Hurray for this magazine which gives reviewers the space to do a decent job.)

There's some lovely ephemera about Twan in an accompanying column, especially about his early love of Enid Blyton. (Hey, I loved Mallory Towers too!). There's also a I'd-laugh-if-it-wasn't-so-bloody-tragic column detailing just how hard it is to track down a copy of The Gift of Rain in various branches of MPH. (Remember Glenda's lament?)

There's much else that's really good in the magazine. Siti Nurhaliza looks natural and gorgeous in Vinod J Nair's photographs. Nazim Isa's photographs of the Roma of Sulukule are fascinating. I missed Sharon Chin's exhibition on banned books and am grateful for the pictures and review. Amir Muhammad's Malaysian Politicians say the Darndest Things gets a two page plug. And Ann Lee pops up again reviewing the Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival and I get to hear about some of the bits I missed.

And much much more ... including one ad I think many of you will be interested in. Time Out, that icon of London culture has been steadily extending its' reach to other world capitals, is now coming to Kuala Lumpur and is looking for freelance journalists and contributors!

Postscript

Irene Q has problems finding the books she wants at MPH too. Book retailing is one of the trickiest businesses to be in, which is why it requires really on the ball staff!

Pictures of the "Poppies"

So here's more about the Popular Bookstore Reader's Choice Awards a couple of days back. (I posted results here.)


Nominees Brian Gomez, Amir Muhammad, Adeline Loh during the speeches. The guest of honour was YM Professor Diraja Ungku Abdul Aziz bin Ungku Abdul Hamid, former Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Malaya. He spoke among other things about the necessity of using Malay for all subjects on the school curriculum and the need to vastly expand the translation of scientific texts into Malay.

The welcome address was delivered by Mr. Vangatharaman Ramayah, Director of Popular Holdings Limited who talked about the history of the bookstore and its broad reach in the Asia Pacific region (it has a total of 129 retail stores and is currently expanding into Myanmar).

Then it was time for each of the nominated titles to be highlighted on the screen above with a brief biodata of each author. My favourite moment though came when the MC had to read out the name of Brian Gomez' blog in this august company!


Then the results were read out in nail-biting reverse order. The first prize winners for the fiction and non-fiction categories won RM1,500 each and a trophy, while second prize winners received RM1,000 and third prize winners RM500.

Above, Tan Twan Eng's mum, Sally (in pink), receiving his award from Ungku Aziz on her son's behalf since he is in South Africa.

A group photo of all the winners in or their representatives. (Though I think some at the edges got squashed out. Apologies.)

A more informal shot afterwards - June Wong (Star executive editor) holds a copy of Adibah Amin's Glimpses, Robert Raymer (red shirt - behind her); Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad holds a copy of Dr Mahathir's Selected Letters to World Leaders which he co-wrote with the former PM; Vangatharaman Ramayah (in the black suit), Director of Popular Holdings Limited; Sally Tan (the lady in pink); Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd executive director Lim Lee Ngoh (holding Preeta's book) ; and last but not least, Kee Thuan Chye holding his copy of March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up.

I was very happy for Robert, winning the fiction category, as I know that this will be important encouragement for him. He looked scrape-me up-off-the-floor-it-can't-be-happening-surprised at the result.

Congrats to Popular books and to the sponsoring newspapers for creating a buzz about Malaysian books and involving readers. This is a very worthwhile event. I must say, though, that I would really welcome an award given by a panel of judges in addition to this popularity contest. (Mind you, there is no literary award without at least some controversy and there is always bound to be disagreement about the results.)

The important thing about any literary award is the conversation it creates, and the recognition and encouragment it gives writers. The "Poppies" succeeded very well on both counts.

(More at The Star.)

Robert Wins a Poppy!

I just got back from Bookfest@Malaysia at KL Convention Centre. I'm sure you are all dying to hear the results of the Star-Popular Book Awards so straight to it! :

The Star Reader's Choice Awards

Fiction Category :

Robert Raymer - Lovers and Strangers Revisited
Preeta Samarasan - Evening is the Whole Day
Tan Twan Eng - The Gift of Rain

Non-Fiction :

Tun Mahathir & Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad - Dr. Mahathir's Letters to World Leaders
Adibah Amin - Glimpses : Cameos of Malaysian Lives
Kee Thuan Chye : March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up

Berita Harian Anugerah Pilihan Pembaca 2009 *

Fiction :

Siti Rosmizah - Andai Itu Takdirny (If It's His/Her Fate)
Aisya Sofea - Selagi Ada Dia - (As Long as He's Here)
Ramlee Awang Murshid - Hijab Sang Pencinta (My Darling's Hijab)

Non-Fiction :

Dr Tengku Asmadi - Teknik Memotivasikan Anak Cara Positive (Positive Ways to Motivate Your Child)
Hadiah Untuk Muslimah (Gifts for Muslim Women)
Langkah Bijak Ushahawan Terbilang Ushawan Terbilang (Wise Steps for Entrepreneurs)

I will put up pictures of the event and add a bit more commentary soon.
(*Translations of titles are my own feeble attempts and I've included them here for overseas readers who will be interested to see what is most popular here - please correct me if I haven't got it right and I'll make changes.)