So much history in one book. When Japan surrendered the war was over for us, but not for that small island. This is a part of history I had never thought about. Here is another fun fact, you can bequeath your skin...who knew!

Beautifully told story about memory, forgetting, finding peace. Interesting narrative structure. High-school me would be flabbergasted, but I have to say I deeply appreciated the absence of sex scenes. They could easily have been there, but the choice to exclude erotic details heightened the sensuality of everything else in the novel.

Very Zen book with beautiful descriptions of the landscape juxtaposed with horrors of war. Wonderful - made me feel extremely calm when I was reading it.

I became aware of this book as it has been long listed for the Man Booker Prize. The fact that it was written by a Malaysian and set in Malaysia made it an immediate must-read for me, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I ended up enjoying it. I loved the authentic writing style, although I would probably have preferred reading the original version rather than the version for international readers. Highly recommend for anyone interested in Malaysian history.

This is a story which drew me deeper and deeper into it, the more I read. I really, really enjoyed getting to now our main character of Yun Ling in her advanced and early years, and seeing her struggle with her past, present and her future was, at times, heartbreaking. This tells the story of Yun Ling right from when she's a young girl to a woman of advanced years. We see her growing up with her sister, who she was close to, and we see the terrible day the Japanese came and took them both away to a secret camp in the Malayan Jungle. The story from then on flips from present to past as we see her life grow and change and we follow how Yun Ling's been affected by the terrible crimes done to her, and the caring people she's met since.

For me, one of the most impressive things about this story is that it truly captivated me with the lyrical and beautiful descriptions. We have many scenes set in a garden becuase Yun Ling befriends Aritomo, the ex-gardener for the Emperor of Japan. These scenes of beautifully sculpted and coaxed flowers and trees made me really visualise the story and I loved that.

This is definitely a story which is fictionalised, but the raw elements of slave camps and abuse that Yun Ling had to suffer are sadly rooted in truth. It made me want to check out a lot more on the subject and to research into Malaya as I didn't know anything about it before.

I would say that this is a lyrical and beautiful story with some genuinely emotional moments. I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for something a little different, and something that will make you intrigued and horrified all at once.

The audiobook narrator for this was Anna Bentinck and she did a good job of recreating the voice I imagined Yun Ling having. I think that her sorrow and her happiness both came through as pure emotions as she narrated, and that helped the story to feel very genuine and grounded.

4*s overall.

A lovely read.

"Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watched them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. ⁣
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Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silence between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?" — The Garden of Evening Mists ⁣

Zeer indrukwekkend en mooi. Ik ben blij dat ik deze schrijver ontdekt heb, de twee boeken die ik van hem heb gelezen vond ik beide erg de moeite waard.
Mijn volledige bespreking van dit boek is hier te vinden: http://bettinaschrijft.blogspot.com/2024/03/de-tuin-van-de-avondnevel-tan-twan-eng.html

This book was intricate and multi-layered, but also sly. I couldn't empathise with the main character despite what she'd been through and I think this was because she was too secretive, and only revealed her secrets and herself gradually. I loved reading about Malay and the descriptions of their occupation by the Japanese were very tense and engaging. The narrative skipped around a lot, I'm sure on purpose but sometimes it was hard to place yourself in the story. A striking book but not one I fell in love with, despite its unusualness.