8 Jan 2014

Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng

From the collecton New Zealand Festival

Tan Twan Eng trained as a lawyer and worked as a solicitor in one of Kuala Lumpur's law firms before becoming a full-time writer. His latest novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and won the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. And his first book, 'The Gift of Rain', published in 2007, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. It's set in Penang before and during the Japanese occupation of Malaya in World War II. In this interview, Twan talks about storytelling, memory, and the martial art discipline of aikido.

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