The South

CHOSEN AS A TIMES, GUARDIAN and FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF 2025

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.

Author: Tash Aw

Paperback  Published 5 March 2025  304 pages

Read and Reviewed by Hendri:

"The first in a quartet of novels, The South is an intimate coming-of-age story about two young boys who discover and make sense of their attraction to one another on a dilapidated farm in Malaysia. When his grandfather dies, Jay travels with his family to the south and spends time on the farm, now plagued by drought. Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, where Jay finds himself drawn into the universe of Chuan, a more masculine, rebellious older boy. As the only son of the farm manager who has spent his lifetime on the farm, Chuan teaches Jay not only how to work the land but also how to break free from his previously isolated middle-class world, leading him on adventures into the streets of the town. From riding the scooter together to venturing into the town bar, Jay soon learns of Chuan’s plans to leave the land and start a new life. As they grow closer and their attraction becomes undeniable, Jay and Chuan begin exploring their unnamed desire. Amidst their emerging relationship, family secrets start to unravel, putting their bond at risk. When Jack eventually decides to sell the land, the boys must find a way to maintain their relationship as their own families are crumbling. A deeply poignant novel with a fast-paced storyline, Tash Aw has written a gripping tale of growing up gay in a Southeast Asian context where larger social and cultural changes shape the queer coming-of-age journey and the accompanying shifts in personal connections and emotions of the characters."