stunning debut....

preeta samarasan. this young lady is so far the best (this time it's for real) author. really really really. this is definitely one of my all-time favourite books. the language is so beautiful. seriously, it is. the best of the best. above all that, she is a Malaysian. yes, you heard me right.

her novel, Evening is the Whole Day, is set in Malaysia. her style is reminiscent of other Indian authors like Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy but still manages to bring out some very interesting ways of expressing situations and surroundings. her prose is really really really amazing. she is a master storyteller.

this is some of the reviews for the book.

Samarasan represents the quiet emergence of new Malaysian writing in books such
as Rani Manicka's The Rice Mother and Touching Earth, Tash Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory, and Tan Twan Eng's Booker-longlisted The Gift of Rain last year.

These writers have significantly broadened our understanding of the region earlier
seen largely through the gin-soaked, misty eyes of Somerset Maugham, the
Tiger-beer induced nostalgia of Anthony Burgess*, or the laconic fiction of Paul
Theroux.

He discusses the socio-political background of the novel : Malaysia permeates Samarasan's novel without didacticism about the country's identity politics. It shows the symbiotic and separate relationship between Malays, Chinese and Indians. Jo Kukathas, the gifted satirist, once joked that in Malaysia "the Chinese do the work, the Malays take the credit, the Indians get the blame". Buried within the quip is a stark divide, explaining the consequences of the May 1969 riots which formed the basis of Lloyd Fernando's 1993 novel, Green is the Colour. ... Those riots led to Malaysia's preferential policies, which benefited Malays over Chinese and Indians, so forcing many non-Malays to seek educational and employment opportunities abroad. and calls the story multi-layered, but feels that the plot gets rather complicated.

Francesca Segal in The Observer yesterday found the novel :
Vibrant, descriptive, and peppered with colourful Indian-Malaysian
dialogue, this is an epic that's informative without being worthy, and
engrossing but not frivolous.Indian reviewers seem perplexed by the novel - you
can almost hear them thinking How come this novelist of Indian heritage, clearly
influenced by Indian authors, isn't writing the kind of Indian novel we expect?

Check out Amardeep's review and the interesting debate in the comments at Sepia Mutiny.

You can find other reviews on Preeta's website

anyways, guys. i am not going to discuss the plot here. i am just going to leave you with all these information. i am hoping that you will go out and buy this amazingly awesome book which i love so much. this is a must read for every Malaysian. I'll be posting more about this book later. (but seriously go get this book)