Tash Aw facts for kids

Tash Aw is a talented Malaysian writer. His full name is Aw Ta-Shi. He was born in 1971 and now lives in London, England. He is known for writing interesting novels.

About Tash Aw

Early Life and Education

Tash Aw was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1971. His parents were from Malaysia. When he was two years old, his family moved back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he grew up.

Like many people in Malaysia, Tash Aw learned several languages. At home, he spoke Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese. At school, he learned Malay and English. Later, he moved to England to study law at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Warwick. After that, he moved to London to focus on writing. In 2003, he earned a special degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia.

His Amazing Books

Tash Aw's first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory, came out in 2005. This book was very popular! It was considered for the famous Man Booker Prize in 2005. It also won the Whitbread Book Awards for Best First Novel that same year. Plus, it won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel in the Asia Pacific region. This book has been translated into twenty different languages, so many people around the world can read it.

His second novel, Map of the Invisible World, was published in 2009. Time magazine praised it, calling it a "complex, gripping drama." They also admired Aw's "matchless descriptive prose" and his "immense intelligence and empathy."

In 2013, he released Five Star Billionaire. This novel was also longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, he wrote The Face: Strangers on a Pier. This book is a memoir, which means it tells a true story from his own life. It talks about immigration through the experiences of his Chinese-Malaysian family. It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

His novel, We, The Survivors, was published in 2019. It was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Tash Aw's novels have been translated into 23 languages, showing how widely read his work is.

Awards and Recognition

In January 2018, his former university, the University of Warwick, gave him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. This is a special award for his achievements. He has also been a visiting professor at Columbia University. In 2023, Tash Aw was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. This is a big honor for writers in the United Kingdom.

Tash Aw's Works

Novels

• The Harmony Silk Factory (2005)
• Map of the Invisible World (2009)
• Five Star Billionaire (2013)
• We, The Survivors (2019)
• The South (2025)

Short Stories

• "Notes from a Desert Sketchbook" (2005)
• "The American Brick Problem" (2006)
• "To The City" (2007)
• "Sail" (2011) - This story won the 2013 O. Henry Prize.
• "Tian Huaiyi" (2012)
• "Tiger" (2013)

Nonfiction

• The Face: Strangers On A Pier (2016)

Essays

• "Writing into Silence" (2023)
• "On Being French and Chinese" (2019)
• "Personal Histories" (2023)
• "The People of the Village" (2017)
• "You Need To Look Away: Visions of Contemporary Malaysia" (2014)
• "A Stranger at the Family Table" (2016)
• "Bridge to Nowhere"
• "Burgess and the Malay Novels"
• "Living and Writing as a Divided Southeast-Asian: On Privilege, Unfairness, and Wanting More From Life" (2019)
• Collected Op-Ed Articles from The New York Times

As Editor

• X-24: Unclassified (2007) (co-edited with Nii Parkes)

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