Preeta Samarasan's striking Malaysian debut novel EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY has been shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the category of Best First Book in South East Asia and the Pacific, along with Aravind Adiga's THE WHITE TIGER and Nam Le's THE BOAT. The regional winners will be selected by the regional judges in March 2009. The two overall winners will be announced on 16 May in New Zealand at the Auckland Writers' and Readers' Festival.

UK, Indian and Australian rights to EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY were sold by Isobel Dixon to HarperCollins, on behalf of Ayesha Pande of the Collins Literary Agency in the US.

Praise for EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY:

'An accomplished and magical debut.' -- Linda Leatherbarrow, New Books Magazine

'EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY is fantastically good…It is strongly reminiscent of novels by Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy…Samarasan has a powerful and compelling narrative style all her own that captures, with incredible and harrowing emotional precision, the cruelties that once-loving family members can pile on one another. ...The Malaysian setting is conveyed with cinematic vividness … and sheds a fascinating light on the complex relationship between Malaysia's diasporic Indian community and its ongoing struggle to define its national identity.' -- Neelam Srivastava, Mslexia Magazine

'All the information in the world cannot substitute for the long slow banquet of a fine novel.  Preeta Samarasan's delicious first novel…provides such a feast…Within the intricate archways of her plot, Samarasan sets out a garden of sensual delights…Samarasan has a gift for selecting just the right amount of detail…a marvellous ear as well, capturing the cadences of the family's hybrid English…Samarasan's fabric is gorgeous.  Her ambitious spiralling plot, her richly embroidered prose, her sense of place and her psychological acuity are stunning.' -- Allegra Goodman, The New York Times Book Review

'Every once in a while, you come across a book that has such a hold on you that you go to bed thinking about it, and wake up wanting to pick it up and immerse yourself in it…EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY is likely to have that effect on you…Bitter-sweet, humorous and yet deeply poignant, the book is one we can truly call a made-in-Malaysia literary tour de force.' -- Sheila Singham, The Edge

Link to the Commonwealth Prize.

Link to Preeta Samarasan's website.