Tash and the Struggle for Independence

Tash Aw was interviewed by Suziena Uda Nagu in yesterday's Learning Curve Supplement of the New Sunday Times. He talks about his travels in Poland and Tuscany, and gives some sterling advice to writers. He says that the theme of his second novel is freedom, and how people make use of it.

Set in the 1960s Indonesia and Malaysia, it is about two brothers who grew up in an orphanage in Jakarta. One gets adopted by a Malaysian family who later moves to Kuala Lumpur and the other stays behind. The story is all about how they find each other. ... I’m interested in what happened to Southeast Asia when it became independent. Indonesia had a very rough time gaining its independence whereas Malaysia ‘seemingly’ had an easy time. In fact there were lots of tensions (in Malaya) at the time.

He promises that the novel will be

.. darker and, in subject matter, riskier than the first one

and hopes that it will be finished next year.

An earlier interview with Tash in the NST by Gerald Chuah can be found here with a lot of encouragement in it for local writers.