The Garden of Evening Mists, By Tan Twan Eng

Shortlisted for the Man Booker, and winner of the Man Asian prize, the Malaysian author's second novel merits its loud applause.

In the late-colonial Cameron Highlands of the 1950s, with Malaya scarred by memories of Japanese occupation and shaken by insurgency, a young woman lawyer befriends the Japanese gardener who, mysteriously, tends his lovely landscape in the hills.

War, art and memory join in a subtle story, notable for its ravishing prose, glorious sense of place, and mature alertness to the deceptive vistas of history.