Eddy Boudel Tan is a second-generation Asian Canadian writer who lives in Vancouver, B.C. He has a background in marketing.
Fiction
After Elias
Toronto: Dundurn, 2020.
E-book (Access restricted to members of the university community)
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
When the airplane piloted by Elias Santos crashes one week before their wedding day, Coen Caraway loses the man he loves and the illusion of happiness he has worked so hard to create. The only thing Elias leaves behind is a recording of his final words, and even Coen is baffled by the cryptic message.
Numb with grief, he takes refuge on the Mexican island that was meant to host their wedding. But as fragments of the past come to the surface in the aftermath of the tragedy, Coen is forced to question everything he thought he knew about Elias and their life together. Beneath his flawed memory lies the truth about Elias — and himself.
From the damp concrete of Vancouver to the spoiled shores of Mexico, After Elias weaves the past with the present to tell a story of doubt, regret, and the fear of losing everything.
Awards and Honours
2021 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction (Publishing Triangle) (Finalist)
Fiction
The Rebellious Tide
Toronto: Dundurn, 2021.
e-book (Access restricted to members of the university community)
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Sebastien has heard only stories about his father, a mysterious sailor who abandoned his mother thirty years ago with nothing but a newborn baby. But when his mother dies after a lifetime of struggle, he becomes obsessed with finding an explanation — perhaps even revenge.
The father he’s never met is Kostas, the commanding officer of a luxury liner sailing the Mediterranean. Posing as a member of the ship’s crew, Sebastien stalks his unwitting father in search of answers to why he disappeared so many years ago.
After a public assault triggers outrage among the ship’s crew, Sebastien finds himself entangled in a revolt against the oppressive ruling class of officers. As the clash escalates between the powerful and the powerless, Sebastien uncovers something his father has hidden deep within the belly of the ship — a disturbing secret that would force him to confront everything he’s always wondered and feared about his own identity.
Awards and Honours
2022 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction (Finalist)
Fiction
The Tiger and the Cosmonaut
Toronto: Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, 2025.
forthcoming April 2025
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Casper Han grew up the dutiful son of immigrants who never felt entirely welcome in their remote corner of British Columbia. Now an adult, living in Vancouver with a boyfriend whose privilege he quietly resents, Casper rarely returns to his hometown, the site of a grief his family doesn’t discuss: the loss of his twin brother, Sam.
Over twenty years have passed since Sam went missing, and a crisis brings Casper and his siblings back. Their father has vanished, only to be found wandering the vast woods beyond the family home, confused and clutching a pair of scissors, seemingly trapped in the memory of that tragic night. In order to move forward, the Han family must finally confront the past and untangle the mystery of what really happened to Sam.
Anthology (Short story)
The Spirits Have Nothing to Do with Us
Boudel Tan, Eddy. “Egg Tart Reconstructed.” In The Spirits Have Nothing to Do with Us: New Chinese Canadian Fiction, edited by Dan K. Woo. Hamilton: Buckrider Books, 2023, 83-88.