Quick Facts
Biography
Tan Twan Eng (Chinese: 陳團英) is a Malaysian novelist born in Penang in 1972.
Life
Tan studied law at the University of London, and later worked as an advocate and solicitor in one of Kuala Lumpur's law firms before becoming a full-time writer. He has a first-dan ranking in aikido and lives in Cape Town.
Career
His first novel, The Gift of Rain, published in 2007, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. It is set in Penang before and during the Japanese occupation of Malaya in World War II. The Gift of Rain has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Czech, Serbian, French, Russian and Hungarian.
His second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, was published in 2012. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and won the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
Tan has spoken at literary festivals, including the Singapore Writers Festival, the Ubud Writers' Festival in Bali, the Asia Man Booker Festival in Hong Kong, the Shanghai International Literary Festival, the Perth Writers Festival, the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, Australia, and the Franschhoek Literary Festival in South Africa.
Works
- The Gift of Rain (2007)
- The Garden of Evening Mists (2012)