Tan Kok Seng: 4 books

Eye on the World is the third and concluding volume of Tan Kok Seng’s autobiography, where he and his young family go to bustling Hong Kong. He writes with endearing honesty about a place that seems a lot like home, yet is vastly different in many ways, and this affectionate sense of observation...

In this revealing sequel to his bestselling autobiography Son of Singapore, Tan Kok Seng finds himself in Malaysia as a British diplomat’s chauffeur. While driving luminaries like author Han Suyin around, Tan falls in love with Heung, a servant girl with dark brown eyes. Despite parental objections,...

A publishing sensation in the 1970s and 1980s, Son of Singapore traces the extraordinary upbringing of an Everyman. As a Teochew farm boy coming of age during the Japanese Occupation, Tan Kok Seng enters the “university of the world” at only 15, becoming a coolie at the Orchard Road market. On...

Set in Penang, the well-heeled Sze family, initially loving, disintegrates as the parents become increasingly absorbed in their own pursuits. Their three children—two of whom are Western educated and one Chinese educated—are, increasingly, forced to think for themselves as they grow up without...