Familial Tensions Brewing in the Countryside

Malaysia is a melting pot of cultures. Strategically located at the nexus where mainland Asia splinters into the archipelagos of Southeast Asia, the Malayan Peninsula has long been a meeting point for diverse peoples, each bringing their own traditions and beliefs. Even today, Malaysia officially recognizes four languages—Malay, English, Chinese, and Tamil—underscoring the complex cultural fabric that defines its identity. This diversity is reflected in Malaysian literature, which draws heavily from its multicultural roots. For example, the rich oral traditions of Indian epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana profoundly influenced early Malay storytelling. Passed down orally in the absence of written records, these traditions gave rise to a wide range of genres: myths, legends, folktales, romances, epics, poetry, proverbs, origin stories, and oral histories.

Malaysia’s literary tradition, however, predates these modern voices. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, scribes were commissioned to chronicle the histories of the region’s kingdoms and sultanates. Among the most notable examples is the Sejarah Melayu (سجاره ملايو‎; The Malay Annals), a romanticized narrative detailing the origins, rise, and fall of the Malacca Sultanate. Similarly, the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (حكاية مروڠ مهاوڠسا‎; The Kedah Annals) provides a mythical account of the Malay kingdom of Kedah. In recent decades, contemporary Malaysian authors have brought these literary roots into global view, weaving the country’s cultural and historical richness into modern fiction. One such writer is Tan Twan Eng, a two-time Booker Prize finalist whose debut novel, The Gift of Rain (2007), introduced global readers to Malaysia’s layered past.

Riding this wave of renewed literary interest is Yangsze Choo, who blends fantasy and history in her acclaimed works. Another contemporary voice shaping both Malaysian and global literature is Tash Aw. Born in Taipei to Malaysian parents, Aw Ta-Shi (歐大旭; pinyin: Ōu Dàxù) made a stunning literary debut in 2005 with The Harmony Silk Factory, earning a longlisting for the Man Booker Prize and winning the Whitbread First Novel Award. His third novel, Five Star Billionaire (2013), was also Booker-nominated, while We, The Survivors (2019) was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. After a six-year hiatus, Aw made a much-anticipated return in 2025 with The South.

She would slip into a routine without even knowing it, until her days were too busy and full of noise and chores for her to have any time to herself, and she discovered that her exhaustion was a source of satisfaction to her; proof of whatever strange notion of success she was supposed to have achieved as a wife and mother. But she would never totally lose this urge to swim against the tide, this sensation of walking away from everything without any remorse or regret or even mere upset.

Tash Aw, The South

Aw’s fifth novel, The South, transports readers to 1990s Malaysia. At its heart is Jay, the teenage narrator and youngest child of Jack Lim and Sui Ching. Jay has two older sisters, Yin and Lina, and the family resides in a quiet Kuala Lumpur suburb. After the death of Jay’s paternal grandfather, the family travels south—hence the novel’s title—to visit a 20-hectare farm inherited by Sui Ching from her father-in-law. The inheritance is unexpected, given Sui Ching’s strained relationship with Jack’s family. Although dutiful, she was never the daughter-in-law they imagined for their son. Once Jack’s student, she married him despite a 15-year age gap. Still, she was entrusted with the land—“a barren piece of land my grandfather had bought just after the war,” as Jay describes it.

Jay’s grandfather, a once-impoverished migrant from Guangdong, was repeatedly displaced by seasonal disasters. Yet the land held deep significance for him. He believed Sui Ching, herself the daughter of Cantonese farmers, would understand its value. The family’s trip south is not merely a holiday—it’s a chance to assess the farm’s condition. In their absence, it has been managed by Fong, Jack’s illegitimate half-brother. The family home has fallen into disrepair, and the orchard, overtaken by weeds and blighted trees, yields only undersized fruits—rambutan, papaya, starfruit, and dragon fruit. Jack sees little value in the farm and pushes to sell it, convinced he has swayed Sui Ching to agree. Fong, meanwhile, tries to rehabilitate the land, though his efforts are mocked by his half-brother.

Because of its current condition, the property has been deemed worthless. These are among the reasons why Jack wanted to dispose of the property. He believed that he was able to persuade his wife to do so. Fong, for his part, has been trying to revitalize the orchard. However, his efforts were mocked by his half-brother. However, as the days in the south progressed, everyone’s perspective started to change. Life in the South proved to be a culturally shocking experience. Used to the comforts of the capital, the members of the family experienced the harsh realities of rural life. They were unaccustomed to the scarcity of resources and amenities and the slow rhythm of life in the countryside. The family struggled to adapt to their new environment, describing the soups of lotus and pork they were served as “peasant food.” The transition from city life to the slow, grueling rhythm of the countryside proved to be tough for the family.

But it wasn’t all bad—the change in pace and environment allowed them space they didn’t know they needed to reflect. But as the other members of the family struggled, Jay was relishing the experience. Jay, who was about to turn seventeen, found the change in routine a breath of fresh air. He was sent out by his father to help the laborers, a welcome break from the bleakness of life in Kuala Lumpur, where he was a loner and bad at sports. He was also casually bullied at school. While helping the farmhands, one person piqued his interest: Chuan, Fong’s dashing nineteen-year-old son. As he toils the useless land under the scorching heat, Jay found himself gravitating toward Chuan, who also happens to be his roommate. Jay was discreetly gay, and life in the South provided a window for his awakening.

At that time of day, I would soon learn, there was a sudden stilling of sound, a contrast to the cacophony at bedtime, when the jungle insects were at their loudest and it felt as though the entire forest might crash through the walls of the house. In the pre-dawn lull, there was a hush so heavy that even the soft squaeak of my rubber sandals on the floor were an intrusion into the calm.

Tash Aw, The South

The growing attraction between Chuan and Jay, however, was expected—the novel opened with Jay and Chuan making love for the first time in the orchard. Their blossoming relationship becomes the novel’s emotional core while the build-up of palpable sexual tension forms the backbone of the narrative. The novel was palpably Jay’s coming-of-age and sexual awakening. It was also about him learning to navigate the world of adolescence: “There had been a lot of talk in recent months about my growing up, but no one could really explain to me what that process involved. There was the question of my lacklustre studies, the reports from other parents in the neighbourhood of changes in my behaviour: my timidity, the fact that I didn’t like sports, how I avoided the other boys at school—even those who had once been friends.” Aw’s most tender and affectionate writing captured the intimacy between the two young lovers.

But as the desire between Jay and Chuan intensifies, so do the fractures within the family. The narrative shifts to Sui Ching’s perspective, revealing a marriage on the verge of collapse. Intimacy has faded, and emotional expression is stifled: “not the kind of family to express pain of any kind, believing that discussing difficult matters would make them worse“. Jack, rigid and emotionally distant, plays the part of the stoic patriarch. Jay described his parents as “actors rehearsing their lines” who would rather be “shouting profanities at each other.” For Sui Ching, the change in landscape ushered in a period of reflection. The trip south becomes a period of introspection for Sui Ching. For the first time, she envisions a life beyond her loveless marriage.

But as Sui Ching and Jay bask in their newfound liberty, the same cannot be said about the other characters. Fong, in particular, found himself confined to poverty. Stuck in the countryside, he was denied upward mobility despite spending his life – shackled – managing a farm he does not own. As Fong realized, he “has been in a box all his life, unable to break free.” With his father preoccupied with the farm, Chuan was left to fend for himself and learn how to navigate the world on his own. Like his father, he yearned for an escape from the stifling life in the countryside, exacerbated by the homophobia of its denizens. Meanwhile, Lina, Jay’s eldest sister, wanted to break free from familial expectations – familial expectations are a recurring theme in the story – and pursue a career in art, a career that the conservative Lim family does not deem as a suitable career.

As the novel delves into the intricacies of family dynamics, the novel also highlights alienation in one’s own land. Jack’s father purchased the farm in a bid to establish a personal stake in Malaysia. It was a way to ground himself in a place where he never quite belonged. He recognized the same in his daughter-in-law. Their shared migrant heritage forges a spiritual link. Sui Ching, stepping on the property for the first time, was seized by a feeling of dominion over the farm. The sense of otherness also extended to the other characters. Yin’s Chinese background and lower social standing make her an unacceptable partner to her Malay boyfriend’s affluent, religious family.

But he is unable to move; he finds that his body has become foreign. For so many years he has yearned for someone to touch him in this way – for the freedom he will experience. He imagined the clarity of the joy he would feel, how he would savour every gesture. Maybe he is afraid of this liberation, and what it might lead to. It is the first time he has felt his body slipping away from his control. In the future there will be other occasions in other places far from here, and he will grow accustomed to it, but for now this sensation is new.

Tash Aw, The South

The farm becomes more than just a setting—it transforms into a layered metaphor. In decay, it mirrors the disintegration of the Lim family. Its stagnation reflects Fong’s and Chuan’s lives. Yet for Sui Ching and Jay, it is a site of possibility, emancipation, and change. These personal narratives unfold against historical backdrops: the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, a devastating drought, and environmental degradation. The crisis scars the local town, while the drought further weakens the farm—an allegory for climate change. The novel also critiques the unchecked destruction of Malaysia’s rainforests, some of the world’s oldest, which, as one character bitterly notes, garner little international concern because they are “not the Amazon.”

The novel also addressed the elephant in the room: the unmitigated development that transformed Malaysian rainforests, considered the oldest in the world. The world does not bat an eye because it is not the Amazon, as one character noted. This historical backdrop added depth and nuance to the story. The South is structured around sharp dichotomies. There was a clear distinction between social classes. City life was also contrasted with the rigors of rural life. There were also generational gaps that created divides between the characters, which trickled into the conflicting attitudes of the characters. Sensitivity was pitted against pragmatism, while realism was contrasted with idealism. These are determinants of the characters’ lives that they also had transcended.

Aw’s storytelling is rich, deliberate, and immersive. His prose appeals to all the senses, breathing life into the South while vividly capturing the growing intimacy between Jay and Chuan. Sounds of the countryside tickle the auditory sense while Chuan’s cologne seduces the olfactory senses. The feel of the humid heat irritates the skin. All over, lush imagery complemented the tender, some introspective scenes between the characters. Still, the narrative is not without imbalance. While Jay, Sui Ching, and Fong are fully fleshed out, others—like Jack—feel more like archetypes. But this appears intentional. The South is the first installment of a planned quartet, and these open-ended threads promise deeper exploration ahead.

Despite some loose ends, The South stands as a deeply moving, self-contained novel. Aw blends history with coming-of-age, the bittersweetness of first love, and the complexities of family dynamics. In a crumbling ancestral home far from the comforts of urban life, surrounded by vanishing wilderness, the characters’ lives started to unravel. They learn more about themselves and what has been holding them back. The novel probes identity, generational trauma, inheritance, and the slow unspooling of relationships. It is, at its core, a meditation on what binds us—and what sets us free. By grappling with the legacy of colonialism, the fragility of the environment, and the longing to belong, The South emerges as a haunting, richly textured narrative of a family—and a nation—at a crossroads.

And maybe they were right, maybe it was a physical evolution stronger than me, or the effect of the weather. I couldn’t help my body producing tears, couldn’t help my hands bunching into fists despite trying to relax them, couldn’t help the feeling of intense embarrassment, the shame of not being as calm as they were. I had the distinct sensation of the air turning soupy and unbreathable, of being suffocated by the very thing that was keeping me alive.

Tash Aw, The South
Book Specs

Author: Tash Aw
Publisher: 4th Estate
Publishing Date: 2025
Number of Pages: 280
Genre: Coming-of-age, Historical, LGBTQIA+

Synopsis

When his grandfather dies, a boy named Jay travels south with his family to the property he left them, a once-flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought.

Still, Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one. Out in the fields, and on the streets into town, the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house, the other family members confront their own regrets, and begin to drift apart. Like the land around them, they are powerless to resist the global forces that threaten to render their lives obsolete.

At once sweeping and intimate, The South is a story of what happens when private and public lives collide. It is the first in a quartet of novels that form Tash Aw’s masterful portrait of a family navigating a period of great change – a reimagined epic of our times.

About the Author

Tash Aw was born Aw Ta-Shi (Chinese: 歐大旭, Ōu Dàxù) on October 4, 1971, in Taipei, Taiwan, to Malaysian parents. When he was just two years old, he and his family returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He grew up in the Kinta Valley. He eventually relocated to England to study law at Jesus College, Cambridge, and at the University of Warwick. He then moved to London to pursue a career as a writer. He completed the MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in 2003.

In 2005, Aw published his debut novel, The Harmony Silk Factory. It was a critical success, earning Aw a longlisting for the Man Booker Prize and the 2007 International Impac Dublin Award. It also won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (South-East Asia and South Pacific Region Best First Book). Building on the success of his debut novel, he published Map of the Invisible World in 2009. His third novel, Five Star Billionaire (2013), was also longlisted for the Booker Prize. His latest novel, The South, was published in 2025 and is set to be the first book in a planned quartet. Aw also published a memoir,  The Face: Strangers on a Pier (2016), and has written essays and short stories that appeared in prestigious publications such as  New York Review of Books, Granta, and The New York Times.

Aw has been a visiting professor at Columbia University and was the 2018/19 Judith Ginsberg Fellow at the Institute of Ideas & Imagination in Paris. He is also a Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. In 2023, Aw was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.