An extract from The South by Tash Aw
‘She has imagined this moment of return many times over the past decade, recreating every detail of the house as she approaches it’
A radiant novel about family, desire and what we inherit, and the longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer
When his grandfather dies, a boy named Jay travels south with his family to the property he left them, a once flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought.
Still, Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one.
Out in the fields, and on the streets into town, the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house, the other family members confront their own regrets, and begin to drift apart. Like the land around them, they are powerless to resist the global forces that threaten to render their lives obsolete.
At once sweeping and intimate, The South is a story of what happens when private and public lives collide. It is the first in a quartet of novels that form Tash Aw’s masterful portrait of a family navigating a period of great change – a reimagined epic for our times.
Tash Aw
About the Author
Born in Taiwan, Tash Aw is the author of five novels, three of which have been longlisted for the Booker PrizeTo 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
What the judges said
‘It’s summertime in the 1990s and rural Malaysia is hot. Teenager Jay and his family leave their home of Kuala Lumpur to work on a farm in the Johor Bahru countryside. There, Jay meets Chaun, who opens Jay up to friendship, illicit pastimes, and a deeper understanding of his sexuality. 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 South is the first instalment of a quartet, and we’re so pleased that there is more to come.’
What the critics said
Heller McAlpin, New York Times
‘The sensuality of the prose is just one of the pleasures of Aw’s writing. With The South, he has crafted a story of yearning for autonomy, escape, financial independence and excitement that is suffused with sexual longing and the ache of nostalgia.’
Johanna Thomas-Corr, Times
‘It’s a book that reveals Aw’s greatest strength as a novelist – an ability to subtly shift and unsettle your perceptions of characters and situations.’
Lara Feigel, Guardian
‘Aw has moved beyond his previous novels to discover a different kind of writing here, emerging as a Proustian chronicler of momentary bodily and mental experience writing on a compressed, exquisite scale. Perhaps he will follow Proust in using his newly revealed capacity for blending the timeless and the historical to reinvent what an epic can be.’
Other nominated books by Tash Aw
Tash Aw’s kaleidoscopic novel about the overlapping lives of five ambitious newcomers to China’s most dynamic city
Tash Aw’s acclaimed first novel is a multi-layered story of love and regret set against the turmoil of mid-20th century Malaysia
