num_pages: 416
description: Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, and Anthony Burgess have shaped our perceptions of Malaysia. In Tash Aw, we now have an authentic Malaysian voice that remaps this literary landscape.The Harmony Silk Factory traces the story of textile merchant Johnny Lim, a Chinese peasant living in British Malaya in the first half of the twentieth century. Johnny's factory is the most impressive structure in the region, and to the inhabitants of the Kinta Valley Johnny is a hero—a Communist who fought the Japanese when they invaded, ready to sacrifice his life for the welfare of his people. But to his son, Jasper, Johnny is a crook and a collaborator who betrayed the very people he pretended to serve, and the Harmony Silk Factory is merely a front for his father's illegal businesses. This debut novel from Tash Aw gives us an exquisitely written look into another culture at a moment of crisis.The Harmony Silk Factory won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award and also made it to the 2005 Man Booker longlist.
language: English
title: The Harmony Silk Factory
titlecomplete: The Harmony Silk Factory
genres: Asian Literature, Historical, 21st Century, Asia, Novels, Historical Fiction, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 2534
places: Malaysia
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Booker Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Guardian First Book Award
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Whitbread Award
category: First Novel, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best First Book in South East Asia and Pacific
publisher: Riverhead Books