About the Author: Tan Twan Eng
Tan Twan Eng was born in 1972 in Penang, but lived in various places in Malaysia as a child. He studied law at the University of London and later worked as lawyer in one of Kuala Lumpur’s most reputable law firms. He also has a first-dan ranking in aikido and is a strong proponent for the conservation of heritage buildings.
Tan Twan Eng talked about his background, his second novel, and his writing process in a May 2012 interview live-tweeted by BooksLiveSA from a literary festival in Franschhoek, South Africa. His hometown is Penang, Malaysia, and he received a law degree there. He said being a lawyer helped him be organized, disciplined, and meticulous, and that lawyers have to craft stories. While he grew up with Malay, Hokkien, and English spoken at home, the author said he thinks and dreams in English. Currently he writes full time, splitting his time between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Cape Town, South Africa. His first novel, The Gift of Rain, set in Penang during World War II was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007. His second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), which opens just after World War II, is written from the perspective of a female judge and involves three cultures: Malay, Japanese, and South African. The author says his third novel will be set in China.
Note: In traditional Chinese style, the family name precedes the given name(s). Tan is the author's family name, Twan Eng his given names. Some authors choose to anglicize their names for the purposes of publishing in English, so that their family name appears on the book cover last not first, others such as Tan Twan Eng don't.
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Tan Twan Eng, Anna Bentinck
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Audio CD, Published in Sep 2012 by Whole Story Audiobooks
ISBN10: 1471216705 | ISBN13: 9781471216701
Page count: 14
It's Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambridge and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh, herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan.
Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in Kuala Lumpur, in memory of her sister who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses, but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice 'until the monsoon comes'. Then she can design a garden for herself.
As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to her sensei and his art while, outside the garden, the threat of murder and kidnapping from the guerrillas of the jungle hinterland increases with each passing day. But the Garden of Evening Mists is also a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? Why is it that Yun Ling's friend and host, Magnus Praetorius, seems almost immune from the depredations of the Communists? What is the legend of 'Yamashita's Gold' and does it have any basis in fact? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?
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