Tan Twan Eng is a Malaysian author. He has written three novels, The Gift of Rain (2007), The Garden of Evening Mists (2012) and The House of Doors (2023), which were all nominated for the Booker Prize.
Tan Twan Eng
Tan Twan Eng
The House of Doors
Watch
Tan Twan Eng
On the Origins of The House of Doors
Sun Yat-sen
Inspiration for The House of Doors
Old Shop Houses in Penang
Inspiration for The House of Doors
Watch
Tan Twan Eng
Reads The House of Doors
Watch
Tan Twan Eng
On the Trial of Ethel Proudlock
William Somerset Maugham
Inspiration for The House of Doors
Watch
Tan Twan Eng
On Writing Real Life People
‘The Letter’
Short Story by W. Somerset Maugham
George Town, Penang
Inspiration for The House of Doors
Watch
Tan Twan Eng
On Storytelling
Tan Twan Eng
From The House of Doors
Featured book by Tan Twan Eng
The House of Doors
Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of the early twentieth century. But in 1921 he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write.
His friend Robert Hamlyn offers an escape in the Straits Settlements of Penang, where Robert’s steely wife Lesley learns to see Willie as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.
As Willie prepares to leave, Lesley confides in him secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic revolutionary Dr Sun Yat Sen. And more scandalous still, her connection to an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.
Read more