Preeta Samarasan is a

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

n author writing in English whose first novel, ''Evening Is the Whole Day'', won the Hopwood Novel Award (while she was doing her MFA at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

), was a finalist for the

Commonwealth Writers Prize Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...

2009, and was on the longlist for the

Orange Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–12), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017)) is one of the United Kingdom's m ...

. A number of short stories have also appeared in different magazines; “Our House Stands in a City of Flowers” won the

Hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure d ...

Asian American Short Story Contest or the

Asian American Writers' Workshop The Asian American Writers' Workshop (often abbreviated AAWW) is a nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 1991 to support Asian American writers, literature and community. Cofounders Curtis Chin, Christina Chiu, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and B ...

Short Story award in 2007.

Life

Samarasan was born in

Batu Gajah Batu Gajah (population 133,422) is a municipality in Kinta District, Perak, Malaysia. It is the capital of Kinta District. Etymology The name ''Batu Gajah'' in Malay means "elephant rock", it is presumably derived from two large boulders (''b ...

. Her father was a schoolteacher in

Ipoh , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Ipoh in Perak , pushpin_map = #Malaysia#Asia#Earth , pushpin_mapsize = 275px , pushpin_map_caption = Ipoh in Malaysia , coordinates ...

in Malaysia, where she attended the SM (Sekolah Menengah) Convent School. In 1992, she won a

United World College United World Colleges (UWC) is an international network of schools and educational programmes with the shared aim of "making education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future." The organization was founde ...

scholarship and went to the

Armand Hammer United World College of the American West UWC-USA (legally named the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West) is a United World College founded in 1982 by industrialist and philanthropist Armand Hammer. Located in Montezuma, New Mexico, it is a two-year, independent, co-ed ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

, United States. After graduating in 1994, she went to

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

, and then joined the Ph.D. program in

musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

at the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music (B.M ...

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

. She was working on Gypsy music festivals in France, for which she was awarded a

Council for European Studies The Council for European Studies (CES), based at Columbia University, is an academic organization for the study of Europe. It offers scholarships and research grants, publications, and an annual conference. History The Council for European Studi ...

fellowship in 2002. Meanwhile, in 1999 she had started work on her novel, and eventually she gave up on her dissertation to write. In 2006 she graduated from the MFA program in creative writing from the

, where she worked on polishing her novel.

Evening Is the Whole Day

''Evening Is the Whole Day'' focuses on the dark secrets of an affluent

Malaysian Indian Malaysian Indians or Indian Malaysians are Malaysian citizens of Indian or South Asian ancestry. Today, they form the third-largest group in Malaysia after the Malays and the Chinese. Most are descendants of those who migrated from India durin ...

family (also living in

Ipoh , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Ipoh in Perak , pushpin_map = #Malaysia#Asia#Earth , pushpin_mapsize = 275px , pushpin_map_caption = Ipoh in Malaysia , coordinates ...

), and has been praised for its lyrical, inventive language, often using untranslated

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

words, and using aspects of Bahasa syntax, such as reduplicatives as intensifiers. The "ambitious spiraling plot" has also come in for praise. Like servants in some other recent novels (Triton in

Romesh Gunesekera Romesh Gunesekera FRSL (born 1954) is a Sri Lankan-born British author, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel ''Reef'' in 1994. He has judged a number of literary prizes and was Chair of the judges of Commonwealth Short Story P ...

's ''Reef'' and Ugwu in

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( ; born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She was described in ''The Times Literary Supplement'' as "the most prominent" of a "procession of criticall ...

Half of a Yellow Sun ''Half of a Yellow Sun'' is a novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Published in 2006 by 4th Estate in London, the novel tells the story of the Biafran War through the perspective of the characters Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard. It rec ...

), the servant girl Chellam emerges as an important character. The story also describes the May 13 race riots of 1969 using the cameo characters "Rumour" and "Fact". It was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2009 for the Best First Book Award. Samarasan currently lives in the Limousin region of France with her husband and two daughters.

Works

Novels

* ''Evening Is the Whole Day'' (2008) * ''Tale of the Dreamer’s Son'' (2022)

Short stories

*
Our House Stands In A City Of Flowers
, ''Hyphen'' (February 2007) *
Trippin' Out
, ''Hyphen'' (August 2007) * "A Rightful Share", ''Guernica Mag'' (November 2009) * "Blue", ''Readings From Readings 2'', Sharon Bakar and Bernice Chauly (ed.) (2012) * "Rukun Tetangga", ''KL Noir: Red'', Amir Muhammad (ed.) (2013) * "Common Ground", unpublished - translated into French in ''Nouvelles de Malaisie'' (2016), Brigitte Bresson (tr.) * "Birch Memorial", ''A Public Space'', Issue 6 (Winter 2007) - republished in ''The O. Henry Prize Stories 2010'', Laura Furman (ed.) * "Girl on the Mountain" and "Red and White", ''The Principal Girl: Feminist Tales from Asia'' (2019) * "Useless", ''Mekong Review'', Issue 15 (April 2019) - translated into French in ''Jentayu'' (Winter 2019), Brigitte Bresson (tr.)

Essays

*
Commemoration and other essays
, ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' (2011-2014) * "Mourning in Victory", ''

Mekong Review ''Mekong Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine on Southeast Asian literature, especially Cambodian literature, Burmese literature, Vietnamese literature, Laotian literature, and Thai literature. It was founded by Minh Bui Jo ...

'' (June 2018) * "Quiet Cruelties", ''Mekong Review'' (April 2019) *
The Limits of Compassion: Refugees in the Time of Corona
, ''Queer Lapis'', 21 April 2020 *
Preeta Samarasan on how Malaysia’s systemic racism forced her to move abroad and how she still mourns the loss of the nation which never quite accepted her
, ''The Culture Review Mag'', 23 April 2020 *
The race ladder
, ''Mekong Review'' (May 2020)

References

External links

Preeta Samarasan personal website

Youtube.com: Preeta Samarasan video

Youtube.com: Preeta Samarasan video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samarasan, Preeta Malaysian novelists Malaysian fairy tales Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Malaysian women writers Malaysian women novelists People from Perak University of Michigan alumni Malaysian people of Indian descent 21st-century Malaysian people 21st-century novelists 21st-century Malaysian women writers Hopwood Award winners People educated at a United World College