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Tash Aw talks to Alex Clark

Fictions: The South

Hay Festival 2025, 

Award-winning author Tash Aw introduces his new novel The South, the first in an extraordinary quartet exploring the lives of a family navigating huge changes in the world. The South follows Jay as he travels south to rural Malaysia with his family, there working on the land and forming a charged connection with Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager.

Aw discusses his sweeping and intimate novel, writing a reimagined epic for our times, and how his own experiences influenced the book. He is author of four novels, including We, the Survivors and a memoir of a Chinese-Malaysian family, Strangers on a Pier. His work has won the Whitbread and Commonwealth Prizes and twice been longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Tash Aw talks to Alex Clark