Map of the Invisible World, By Tash Aw

One day soldiers came and took Karl away. Adam watched, silent, hiding in the bushes. Tash Aw's second novel, a worthy successor to The Harmony Silk Factory, opens evocatively. Gently, and ever so slowly, we are led into 1960s Indonesia and Malaysia, the two countries struggling with independence, fighting the communists and each other.

In the forefront, we have Adam's quest to find Karl: a Dutch Indonesian artist who has stayed after independence to help rebuild the new country. He adopts the orphan Adam who is distinguished by his "neutral Indo-Malay features". They live on the Indonesian island of Perdo, shrouded in legends and myths. Karl's distaste for colonialism is so strong that he bans Dutch in his house: "it's the language of oppression". One should not grow up absorbing the culture of a country that has colonised one's own. "We are independent now; we need our own culture."

On one level, Map of the Invisible World is about how postcolonial culture is shaped, how histories and memories collide to produce a new synthesis. The emerging construction is not free from xenophobia or anti-colonial sentiments; both become important components of the new national culture. Karl is seized largely for his pink skin as Dutch colonial administrators are repatriated. Even Indonesia's aggressive stance towards Malaysia, the policy of Konfrontasi, is projected as an attempt to shape a distinctive cultural identity.

But Malaysia and Indonesia, with the same language and so much of their history and customs in common, are like two siblings. Aw shows us how the two countries took different routes. Johan, Adam's elder brother, was adopted earlier and lives with a wealthy family in Kuala Lumpur. Like the city itself, Johan is self-obsessed, enthralled by speed and constantly on the verge of self-destruction. He is driven with a sense of guilt at abandoning his sibling.

Adam is helped in his quest by Margaret, an American anthropologist who teaches at a university in Jakarta. A former lover of Karl, Margaret suffers from guilt at American policy towards South-East Asia and feels unease at the anti-American sentiments she witnesses in Indonesia. She is drawn towards Din, a young colleague with communist sympathies who is planning to assassinate President Sukarno.

Din longs for the authentic Indonesian culture free from colonial gaze; and plans to write a "secret history" of the "lost world" of Bali. Aw handles both political upheaval and the personal trauma it generates with considerable skill and verve. However, his real talent is for description. His prose is vividly lyrical; and one can almost feel the heat and smell the sweat of Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. But sometime the descriptions become burdensome: Jakarta is not just grey but its greyness acts as a cataract to cloud the city. Eventually, they get the better of a narrative which peters out towards the end. Adam's quest, to our disappointment, turns out as rather insignificant.

Map of the Invisible World consciously echoes the novels of the late, great Pradoedya Ananta Toer, who chronicled Indonesia's struggle against the Dutch and the turmoil of the emerging nation. Clearly, Aw has bags of talent. But he has some way to go before he can match the genius of the Master.

Ziauddin Sardar's 'Balti Britain' is published by Granta