Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian parents. He grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and moved to England to attend university. His first novel, THE HARMONY SILK FACTORY, published in 2005, won both the Whitbread Award and the regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel that year, and was longlisted for the MAN Booker Prize. His second novel, MAP OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD, set in post-Independence Indonesia and Malaysia, was published in 2009. His fiction has been translated into 23 languages.

A frequent contributor to the BBC and a variety of British newspapers, he also commentates on South East Asian arts and culture. He is 37 and lives in Islington, London, but travels widely throughout South East Asia.

Tash Aw in Jaipur,by Aradhana Seth 2009 copyright Aradhana Seth