Malaysian Fiction

Here is the (delayed sorry) list of suggestions for anyone still looking for a book. Same format as always - choose a book tied into our monthly theme, read it and come along and talk about it!

• Tan Twan Eng – Internationally acclaimed; explores colonial Malaya, memory, trauma.
• The Gift of Rain (2007) – WWII Penang, loyalty and identity.
• The Garden of Evening Mists (2012) – postwar memory and healing; Man Asian Prize.
• The House of Doors (2023) – colonial Malaya, love, betrayal.
• Preeta Samarasan – Malaysian Indian voice; rich language, themes of class, ethnicity, family secrets.
• Evening Is the Whole Day (2008) – an affluent family in Ipoh with buried traumas.
• Tale of the Dreamer’s Son (2022) – family and national history.
• Short stories in various journals.
• Yangsze Choo – Blends historical fiction with folklore and myth; internationally popular.
• The Ghost Bride (2013) – colonial Malaya, ghost marriage tradition (adapted by Netflix).
• The Night Tiger (2019) – 1930s Malaya, folklore and mystery.
• The Fox Wife (2024) – myth and family secrets.
• Tash Aw – Major novelist in English; themes of migration, identity, family, colonial history.
• The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) – WWII Malaya, power and betrayal.
• Map of the Invisible World (2009) – brothers across Malaysia/Indonesia.
• We, The Survivors (2019) – contemporary class and moral compromise.
• The South (2025) – family and reckoning in rural Malaysia.
• Shih-Li Kow – Known for short fiction and novels capturing everyday Malaysian lives.
• Ripples and Other Stories (2008) – short stories, Frank O’Connor shortlist.
• The Sum of Our Follies (2014) – novel on moral follies, won Prix du Premier Roman Étranger.
• Ho Sok Fong – Prominent short-story writer; explores gender, faith, minority experiences.
• Lake Like a Mirror – stories of women in modern Malaysia, sparse and powerful.
• Tunku Halim – “Malaysia’s Stephen King”; mixes horror, folklore, and Gothic with social commentary.
• Dark Demon Rising (1997) – dark fantasy novel.
• Scream to the Shadows – retrospective horror short stories.
• Khadijah Hashim – Earlier generation; wrote in Malay, translated into English; shaped modern Malaysian fiction.
• Badai Semalam (1968, trans. Storms of Yesterday) – classic of social change and love.
• Siti Zainon Ismail – Academic and novelist; often highlights East Malaysian histories, women’s voices.
• Pulau Renik Ungu (The Island of Purple Crocus) (1995) – history, travel, family, colonial legacies.
• Zen Cho – Fantasy/speculative with strong cultural and literary voice; acclaimed short fiction.
• Spirits Abroad – award-winning short story collection.
• The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water – novella with Malay folklore undertones.
• Black Water Sister – modern Penang, myth meets contemporary life.
• Malachi Edwin Vethamani – Writer and editor; key in Malaysian English short fiction.
• Editor of The Best of Malaysian Short Fiction in English, 2010–2020.
• Writes short stories on identity, ethnicity, modern urban life.
• Cassandra Khaw – Malaysian speculative writer with literary style; short stories widely anthologized.
• The All-Consuming World (2021) – speculative novel.
• Numerous short stories (horror, fantasy, sci-fi) with Malaysian inflections.