Canongate nets 'exquisite' first novel in a decade by Tan Twan Eng

Canongate has netted The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng an "exquisite, transporting" novel and the author’s first in a decade.

Publisher-at-large Francis Bickmore bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Jane Gregory at David Higham Associates. The novel, Tan’s third, is slated for publication in March 2023.

The novel is his first since the Man Booker-shortlisted title The Garden of Evening Mists which Canongate also released. Canongate will also be republishing Tan’s Booker-longlisted debut novel The Gift of Rain in its Canons series on 7th July.

His new book revolves around a couple’s friendship with author and playwright William Somerset Maugham, set in the 1920s and orbiting the imperial dynasty of China and the unease of Empire. 

"The House of Doors is a masterful novel, based on real events, exploring love, betrayal, public morality and private truth under the shadow of Empire," the synopsis reads. "It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.

"Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she see him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.

"As Willie prepares to leave and face his demons, Lesley throws caution to the wind, and confides how she came to know the charismatic Dr Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China. And more scandalous still, she reveals her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction."

Bickmore said: "Tan Twan Eng’s new book is an exquisite, transporting beautiful thing, the kind of fiction that makes you want to stop all the clocks and immerse in its world. It is about love and loyalty, desire and duty, and the tension between public morality and private truth. Its twisting, turning plot — which draws on real events in Penang 100 years ago — is as resonant now as ever. 

"Everyone at Canongate is immensely proud to be publishing this masterful novel next March and we believe that, following Twan’s Booker longlisting and Booker shortlisting, critics and reader alike will fall under the spell of The House of Doors."

Tan was born in Penang, Malaysia. The Garden of Evening Mists won the Man Asian Literary Prize 2013 and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

"I’m proud and excited to be working with Francis Bickmore and his excellent team at Canongate Books, which was voted the Best Independent Publisher of 2021 by the British Book Awards," he said.