Five Star Billionaire: A Novel

by Tash Aw

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am indebted to the following people and organizations, whose extraordinary kindness and generosity allowed me to live in Shanghai at various times during the writing of this novel: The Shanghai Writers’ Association, with special thanks to Wang Anyi and Hu Pei; everyone at the M Literary Residency, especially Michelle Garnaut, Tina Kanagaratnam, Bruno Van Der Burg, and Jane Chen; and the Society of Authors for the award of an Authors’ Foundation grant.

  Of the many books I consulted while researching this novel, Leslie Chang’s groundbreaking study of migrant workers, Factory Girls, proved the most inspirational.

  Ian Teh’s beautiful, disturbing photographs of both China and Malaysia were a starting point for many happy conversations about migration and the changes taking place in the countries we know and love.

  I am also deeply grateful to friends and family who fed and supported me while I wrote this novel: Clare Allan, Tahmima Anam and Roland Lamb, Liling and James Arnold, David Godwin, Philip Goff, Sue-Ling and Alistair Griffin, Charlie Gurdon, Tony Hardy, Francis Hétroy, Huang Bei, DD Johnson, Michelle Kane, Marianna Kennedy and Charles Gledhill, Mimi and Aaron Kuo-Deemer, Alison MacDonald and Adam Thirlwell, Andrew Mills, Beatrice Monti Von Rezzori, Siddharth Shanghvi, Joo Teoh, Anna Watkins, You Sha and Jeff Weil, and Adele You Yun.

  Thanks also to: Cindy Spiegel in New York; Nicholas Pearson and Robert Lacey in London; Maggie Doyle in Paris; and Kamloon Woo in Taipei.

  By TASH AW

  Five Star Billionaire

  Map of the Invisible World

  The Harmony Silk Factory

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TASH AW was born in Taipei, in the Republic of China, and brought up in Malaysia. He moved to England to attend university and now lives in London. He is the author of The Harmony Silk Factory, which was the winner of the Whitbread Award for First Novel and the Commonwealth Book Prize for best first novel and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Map of the Invisible World. His other awards include the inaugural M Literary fellowship in Shanghai and an O. Henry Award.