Born in Taiwan, Tash Aw is the author of five novels, three of which have been longlisted for the Booker Prize
Raised in Malaysia and educated in England, Aw attended the University of East Anglia’s celebrated creative writing school and subsidised his nascent career by working as an auction-house porter, a paralegal in a law firm and a Chinese language tutor. His literary examinations of the changes in his home region over the past 100 years earned him the (occasional) moniker of the ‘Malaysian Graham Greene’.
His work has won the Whitbread and Commonwealth Prizes, and an O. Henry Award, and has been translated into over 20 languages.
To call The South a coming-of-age novel nearly misses its expanse. This is a story about heritage, the Asian financial crisis, and the relationship between one family and the land
— The Booker Prize 2025 judges on The South
