The Harmony Silk Factory
By: Tash Aw.
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 2005
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 362
Subjects: Malaysia -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Description: This novel juxtaposes three accounts of the life of an enigmatic man at a pivotal and haunting moment in Malaysian history. The author slices his first novel into three segments, wherein three characters dissect the nature of Johnny Lim, a controversial figure in 1940s Malaysia. Depending on the teller, Johnny was a Communist leader, an informer for the Japanese, a dangerous black-market trader, a working-class Chinese man too in awe of his aristocratic wife to have sex with her, or a loyal friend. Long after Johnny's death, we hear these conflicting accounts of his life.