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Tash Aw

Tash Aw is a former graduate of UEA. The Harmony Silk Factory is his first novel and was the winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 2005 and Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel 2005, as well as being longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His second novel was 'Map of the Invisible World'. He is Malaysian by birth but now lives in London.

Awards: Whitbread (2005) see all

Genres: Literary Fiction

New and upcoming books

August 2027

Sister

Novels

   The Harmony Silk Factory (2005)
   Map of the Invisible World (2009)
   Five Star Billionaire (2013)
   We, The Survivors (2019)
   Strangers on a Pier (2021)
   The South (2025)
   Sister (2027)

Anthologies edited

X-24: Unclassified (2007) (with Nii Ayikwei Parkes)

Non fiction show

Awards

2005 Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel : The Harmony Silk Factory

Award nominations

	2026 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction (finalist) : The South
	2026 Jhalak Prize (shortlist) : The South
	2025 Booker Prize (longlist) : The South
	2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (nominee) : We, The Survivors
	2013 Booker Prize (longlist) : Five Star Billionaire
	2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best First Book (nominee) : The Harmony Silk Factory
	2005 Booker Prize (longlist) : The Harmony Silk Factory

Tash Aw recommends

The Living Realm (2026)
Jordan Tannahill
"A ghost story, a meditation on ageing and the passage of time, a celebration of queer Berlin - Jordan Tannahill captures so much in a slim, hypnotic novel."

The Persians (2025)
Sanam Mahloudji
"At once funny and profound, sprawling and personal, The Persians questions history's grip on our lives - is it possible to free ourselves from the past, and do we even want to? A gloriously engrossing debut."

Our Evenings (2024)
Alan Hollinghurst
"Our Evenings is a truly astonishing novel, by turns delicate and ferocious, radical in the way it explores questions of race, class, sexuality, and origins in a genteel English Home Counties setting. It is the story of a country undergoing great change, even if its people aren't aware of it - the novel moves through time so beautifully that I felt such a sense of loss at the end."

Day (2023)
Michael Cunningham
"Few writers capture the crazy contradictions of modern life with as much clarity and wisdom as Michael Cunningham. Day glows beauty and energy; its characters slip off the page and into your life."

Wandering Souls (2023)
Cecile Pin
"Meticulously researched and beautifully imagined, Wandering Soul is a deeply affecting debut, a restless inquiry into the nature of loss, kinship and survival."

Tale of the Dreamer's Son (2022)
Preeta Samarasan
"Politics, religion, culture and love collide on every page of Preeta Samarasan's new novel. At once furious and funny, majestic and intimate, Tale of the Dreamer's Son is an ode to the glorious and complex mess that is Malaysia."

Bestiary (2020)
K-Ming Chang
"Fierce and funny, full of magic and grit, Bestiary is the most searching exploration of love and belonging I’ve read in a long time. Family, immigrant, queer, magic realist—none of these tags can quite capture the energy of this startling novel, which is all of those things, yet somehow more. K-Ming Chang has created something truly remarkable."

21 Immortals (2020)
(Inspector Mislan, book 1)
Rozlan Mohd Noor
"Razor-sharp and full of the grit and color of the streets of Kuala Lumpur, 21 Immortals is a gripping examination of the link between organized crime and politics. Total edge-of-the-seat stuff."

A Man (2020)
Keiichiro Hirano
"A riveting examination of desire and identity, A Man patiently unpicks the nature of unfulfilled aspirations. Keiichiro Hirano has written a multilayered tale of human reinvention, at once eminently readable and deeply moving."

Crazy Rich Asians (2013)
(Rich, book 1)
Kevin Kwan
"Rachel’s squeaky-clean naiveté is a clever foil to the intricate workings of the high-glamour Asian set around her. Chinese on the outside but all-American on the inside, she allows us to see the myriad nuances of intra-Asian culture that the novel goes to great lengths to show."

Communion Town (2012)
Sam Thompson
"A remarkable first novel."

The Loudest Sound and Nothing (2007)
Clare Wigfall
"Unsettling, brooding and beautifully crafted."

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