Author Tan Twang Eng became the first Malaysian author to win Asia’s top literary prize on today for his novel set during the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaya.
Tan won the USD 30,000 Man Asian Literary Prize with The Garden of Evening Mists, beating four other shortlisted books.
Literary critic and journalist Maya Jaggi led the judging panel and said Tan’s novel ‘revisits the traumatic aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and the post-war insurgency against British rule, with stylistic poise and probing intelligence’.
The Garden of Evening Mists, was also shortlisted for the 2012 Booker prize, follows a law graduate who discovers a Japanese garden.
Tan won the USD 30,000 Man Asian Literary Prize with The Garden of Evening Mists, beating four other shortlisted books.
Literary critic and journalist Maya Jaggi led the judging panel and said Tan’s novel ‘revisits the traumatic aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and the post-war insurgency against British rule, with stylistic poise and probing intelligence’.
The Garden of Evening Mists, was also shortlisted for the 2012 Booker prize, follows a law graduate who discovers a Japanese garden.