1. We, the Survivors
We, the Survivors is Malaysian author Tash Aw’s most recent and arguably most accomplished novel.
Published last year, the novel explores class tension in Malaysia, particularly the issues faced by contemporary working class Malaysian Chinese.
The novel’s protagonist, Ah Hock, is an ex-convict who has been eking out a bare living ever since he could remember.
Out of prison and enjoying (mostly) his much-reduced life, he meets Su Min, an upper crust, Western-educated girl who wants to write his story.
It is as he recollects his life to Su Min that she, as well as the reader, becomes more aware of the class tensions in modern Malaysia.
2. Lake Like a Mirror
Ho Sok Fong’s second collection of stories explores the lives of contemporary Malaysian women who are often caught in circumstances between their control.
Each story reveals an element or elements of the structural violence inherent in the lives of women in modern Malaysia, who are caught in a rapidly evolving context dominated by urbanisation, the patriarchy and religion.
Making deft use of surreal imagery to underscore the illogic and absurdity faced by these women, the stories can be chilling at times and darkly humorous at others. Yet there is a persistent pall of listlessness and disenfranchisement that hangs over the lives of each one of her protagonists.
Lake Like a Mirror was the winner of an English PEN award in 2019.
3. The Wandering
A choose-your-own literary adventure, The Wandering is Indonesian author Intan Paramaditha’s 21st century take on the Faustian bargain.
A deal with the devil lands the protagonist a pair of magic red heels that will take her anywhere she (or in this case, the reader) chooses.
But this ability to instantaneous become someone else, somewhere else also means that you are thrown into a context not of your own making, creating some serious existential ramifications for your protagonist.
Of course, if you kept your finger on the previous page before you turned to your new persona, then you can very well cheat and decide to go back and choose again, which is a not unsubtle jab at the politics of global travel.
The Wandering was the winner of an English PEN award in 2019.
4. The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic
This collection of short stories by Nick Joaquin, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Filipino writers, explores the post-colonial legacy inherited by the island nation following the departure of the last of its colonial masters in the 1940s.
His stories grapple with the country’s newfound freedom following a centuries-long period of foreign rule and its people’s continuing struggle to make sense of its heritage.
Stylistically, Joaquin’s works are replete with references to folklore, Catholicism, magical realism and baroque excess, lending justification to the book’s description as “tropical gothic”.
The eponymous story, “The Woman Who Had Two Navels”, is regarded as Joaquin’s best story, which would later be expanded into a full novel.
5. The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth
Winner of the SEA Write Award in 2015, Veeraporn Nitiprapha’s The Blind Earthworm has been hailed as a modern Thai classic which is at once a tragic romance and political commentary.
Protagonist Chareeya is shocked into life – born prematurely when her mother catches her husband in flagrante with his lover – and would carry the burden of that broken love the rest of her life.
Orphaned young together with her elder sister Chalika, the two of them would form a close bond with their neighbour, another orphan boy named Pran, which would thrust the three of them into a labyrinth of their own making.
With her lush prose, Veeraporn draws her reader into a fevered dream where traditions, desire and mythology interweave.
According to airasia.com
