What you are currently holding is Tunku Halim’s fifth collection of short stories. You’ll find a whole range of characters in the pages to come, including hungry, slimy creatures, a cunningly cuddly toy, a vengeful romantic, a killer bodyguard and a wife who refuses to stay dead. As a murderous treat, there is also the novella Lodger, which may confirm your worst fears about digital technology. These stories were written well before that most significant of dates, 9 May 2018; well before the groundswell that swept away 61 years of Barisan Nasional rule. So some of the references to politicians and the political climate might be out of date. Unless (and this is the true horror) things have actually remained the same…
Author
Tunku Halim has lived in the UK, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia. He worked as Legal Counsel for a global IT company before turning to writing. Twenty books later, he is dubbed Asia’s Steven King. By delving into Malay myth, legends and folklore, his writing is regarded as ‘World Gothic’. His novel, Dark Demon Rising, was nominated for the 1999 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award whilst his second novel, Vermillion Eye, is used as a study text in The National University of Singapore’s Language and Literature course. His short story has also won first prize in a 1998 Fellowship of Australian Writers competition. In Malaysia, he has had three consecutive wins in Malaysia's Star-Popular Readers’ Choice Awards between 2015 and 2017.
