Description

An excellent book from the genuinely exciting new voice in British fiction. A book for anybody who enjoyed The English Patient. Occur Malaysia in the 1930s and 40s, with the rumbling of the 2Nd World-War in the back ground and the Japanese going to invade, The Harmony Silk Factory may be the story of four people: Johnny, an infamous Chinaman -- a salesman, a fraudster, possibly a murderer -- whose shop-house, The Harmony Silk Factory, he uses as a front for his illegal businesses; Snow Soong, the beautiful daughter of one of the Kinta Valley's most prominent families, who dies having a baby to one of the novel's narrators; Kunichika, a Japanese officer who loves Snow also; and an Englishman, Peter Wormwood, who visited Malaysia like many English but never came ultimately back, who also loved Snow towards the end-of his existence. A journey the four of them take in to the jungle includes a devastating impact on all them, and brilliantly exposes the cultural tensions of the period.