マレーシア作家の小説の中で　他言語に一番多く翻訳されている小説だそうだ。

キャメロン高原が舞台になっている。

日本軍の占領時代、共産主義勢力による国家危機時のemergency ピリオド　などの歴史的背景も含めて　私にとって興味深い。

私以上に、ウイリアムには　興味深い小説だろう。

ウイリアムにとっては　キャメロンは、彼が生まれ、育ち、今も暮らしている場所だ。

キャメロンでの少年時代を思い出し、郷愁惹かれる内容かもしれない。

そう思って　ウイリアムに　転送しておいた。

キャメロンに住んでいた時は、ウイリアムのおかげで　丘の上にある旧教会/女子修道院Convent も個人見学できた。　

日本軍が使っていた当時の写真が壁に貼ってあったのを思い出す。

キャメロン高原を舞台にした小説には　松本清張の　「熱い絹」がある。

「熱い絹」はキャメロンにいる時に　読んだ。

The Garden of Evening Mists は　Amazonでオンライン購入できる。

早速　Kindleで買って　読んでみよう。

怪奇書のドグラマグラは読むのをやめて。

The Garden of Evening Mists Tan Twan Eng

(概要)

This is another enchanting novel by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng. ‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ focuses on the post-Second World War period in Malaya. The Japanese occupiers have gone and local communist fighters are challenging British rule. In the hills of the Cameron Highlands, next to a tea plantation, lies a delicate Japanese garden created by Nakamura Aritomo, a man who was once gardener to the Emperor of Japan. Four decades later when Yun Ling Teoh retires as a Supreme Court judge in Kuala Lumpur, she re-visits the garden at Yugiri. This is her story.
In the 1950s Emergency, the people who lived in Malaya’s hill villages grew to fear the communists. Homes were raided and destroyed, people killed, women raped. This is the setting in which Yun Ling first visits Yugiri to ask Aritomo to build a traditional Japanese garden in memory of her sister Yun Hong. This is a novel about memory, things remembered and things denied, and about loyalty. Yun Ling’s loyalty to her sister who was killed in a Japanese labour camp and her guilt that she could have done more to save her, and loyalty to Arimoto who she loved and thought she knew.
Judge Teoh returns to Yugiri as an old woman approaching death, many years after Arimoto walked into the jungle and never returned. She is forced to relive her past when a historian arrives to assess Arimoto’s engravings. As she relives the years of her imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese, and the post-war years when she first worked at Yugiri’s garden, Judge Teoh questions her perceptions of the past. This time, there is no avoiding the truth.
Tan Twan Eng discusses big issues. He explores the moral dilemmas of war and peace after war, considering the murderous actions of the Japanese at war, the same Japanese who love traditional gardens and the rituals of archery. This novel is rich in history, both of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, the labour camps, lost war treasure, and of the Emergency. The lush countryside is offset by the tales of horror and abuse told. As with Tan Twan Eng’s first novel, ‘The Gift of Rain’, the beauty of the setting is juxtaposed with cruelty and violence.
A deep, thought-provoking and at times difficult novel, the writing is beautiful. ‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012, the winner that year was Hilary Mantel for ‘Bring Up the Bodies’.

ちなみに　日本の小説で　他言語に一番多く翻訳されている小説は　次のとおりだ。

Japan: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

以上　(9/1記)