It was in early December last year when we met the award-winning writer of The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng, who was in Penang for the George Town Literary Festival. Casually dressed and equipped with Hilary Mantel’s massive tome, A Place of Greater Safety, he sat down at the cafe in Penaga Hotel for a chat.
You were born in Penang and you currently split your time between KL and Cape Town. How did you end up in South Africa?
Well, I was working in KL as a lawyer and I wasn’t enjoying it very much. I told myself, “I must take a year or two off to do something else.” So I decided to do a Masters degree. I looked around and most of my friends had already done the usual countries – the UK, Australia, the US – and I didn’t want to do that. I had friends in South Africa who suggested for me to go over and, while I was studying, just travel around the country. So I said, “Yeah, okay.”
