Preeta Samarasan is a

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

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 The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

), was a finalist for the

Commonwealth Writers Prize Commonwealth Foundation has presented a number of prizes since 1987. 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 First ...

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 2009–2012), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017) is one of the United Kingdom's ...

. 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. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...

Asian American Short Story Contest or the

Asian American Writers' Workshop The Asian American Writers' Workshop (often abbreviated AAWW) is a New York–based nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 1991 to support Asian American writers, literature and community. Cofounders Curtis Chin, Christina Chiu, Marie M ...

Short Story award in 2007.

Life

Samarasan was born in

Batu Gajah Batu Gajah (population 133,422) is the seat of Kinta District, Perak, Malaysia. It is administered by the Batu Gajah District Council (), formerly known as Kinta West District Council (). Etymology The name ''Batu Gajah'' in Malay means "e ...

. Her father was a schoolteacher in

Ipoh Ipoh (, ) is the capital city of the Malaysian States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Perak. Located on the Kinta River, it is nearly north of Kuala Lumpur and southeast of George Town, Penang, George Town in neighbouring Penang ...

in Malaysia, where she attended the SM (Sekolah Menengah) Convent School. In 1992, she won a United World College scholarship and went to the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

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

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, Clinton, New York. It was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and received its c ...

, and then joined the Ph.D. program in

musicology Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...

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, United States. Established in 1921 by celebrated industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman, it was the ...

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

. She was working on Gypsy music festivals in France, for which she was awarded a Council for European Studies 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 Indo-Malaysians are Malaysian of South Asian ancestry. Most are descendants of those who migrated from India to British Malaya from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Most Malaysian Indians are ethnic Tamils; smaller groups include the ...

family (also living in

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

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

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 ...

's ''Reef'' and Ugwu in

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born Grace Ngozi Adichie; 15 September 1977) is a Nigerians, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, poem, and children's books; she is also a book reviewer and literary critic. Her most famous works include ''Purple ...

Half of a Yellow Sun ''Half of a Yellow Sun'' is a 2006 novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It became instantly successful after its publication; in the United States and Nigeria, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''Half of a Y ...

), 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.) *
Perhentian Sunrise
, '' The European Review of Books'', Issue 3 (April 2023)

Essays

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