The Gift of Rain...

This is a gem of a book written by a very talented Malaysian author.

Tan Twan Eng is a lawyer who is now based in South Africa working on his second novel. His first novel 'The Gift of Rain' was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2007.

This is the story of an intense friendship between Philip Hutton, a half-gwai-loh-half-chinese young man in Penang with Endo, a Japanese diplomat, built over their common interest in 'aikido' - a Japanese form of martial arts.

The Japanese invasion of Malaya exposed the fact that Endo had also used his relationship with Philip to gather strategic information to prepare the Japanese invasion of Malaya. And this affected Philip's relationship to his family some of whom lost their lives during the war.

This is a story about love and about loyalty ( to family, to friend/sensei-teacher ?lover).

Twan Eng has done a lot of research into writing this book. One learns so much history about the early settlers and migrants of Penang and Ipoh. Reading his descriptions of old Penang and old Ipoh makes me want to take a holiday to these places again.

And reading his description of their 'aikido' practices enables me to picture their 'moves' as if I was watching a ballet performance.

This is a book that can make a good movie scrip. I can imagine Takeshi Kaneshiro acting as Philip and Ken Watanabe playing the role of Endo with either Zhang Yi Mou or Wong Kar Wai directing it....

I wish the Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka would translate this book into Malay so that it will get a wider readership.