'A mesmerising tale. Both heartbreaking and joyful' MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM A radiant novel of the
longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer - about family desire and
what we inherit - from celebrated author Tash Aw. 'Shimmeringly intelligent and elegiacally
intimate' YIYUN LI CHOSEN AS A TIMES GUARDIAN and FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF 2025. A radiant
novel of the longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer - about family
desire and what we inherit - from celebrated author Tash Aw. When his grandfather dies a boy
named Jay travels south with his family to the property he left them a once flourishing farm
that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased the fields parched from months of
drought. Still Jay's father Jack sends him out to work the land or whatever land is left.
Over the course of these hot dense days Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan the son of the
farm's manager different from him in every way except for one. Out in the fields and on the
streets into town the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house the other family
members confront their own regrets and begin to drift apart. Like the land around them they
are powerless to resist the global forces that threaten to render their lives obsolete. At once
sweeping and intimate The South is a story of what happens when private and public lives
collide. It is the first in a quartet of novels that form Tash Aw's masterful portrait of a
family navigating a period of great change - a reimagined epic for our times.
