Book Review: The Garden of Evening Mists

Looking for a novel with beautiful writing? ...I came across this novel, The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (published in 2012) at the Bay County used book sale; always a good location to pick up books at minimum prices. It was the winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize for the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English. It was also a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, a prestigious literary award for the best single work of fiction written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland.

The story revolves around Yun Ling who is the sole survivor of a Japanese wartime camp. Her sister died there and now Yun Ling wants to create a Japanese garden to honor her. Aritomo, the famed former gardener for the emperor of Japan now resides in Malaya and has created his own Japanese garden. Yun Ling seeks him out. This is historical fiction.

Here are some samples of the author’s prose:

“Daylight was nibbling the margins of the sky.”

“Light shone from the windows, the kitchen chimney scribbling smoke over the treetops.”

“She empties out a sigh from deep within her. ‘My memory is like the moon tonight, full and bright, so bright you can see all its scars,’”

“A pair of cloth lanterns, once white, hung from the eaves, like cocoons discarded by silkworms. Blackened by soot and incense smoke, the red calligraphy painted on them had ruptured and bled into the tattered cloth, words turned to wounds.”