William Tham was born in Malaysia. A writer, editor, and blogger, Tham has maintained his “official” blog since June 2009. He lived for years in Vancouver and held a variety of posts with Ricepaper Magazine, where he continues to serve as a contributing editor.
Fiction
Kings of Petaling Street
London: Fixi London, 2017.
Publisher’s Synopsis
If you are the most powerful kingpin of the Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, can you save your family from other ambitious men? Wong Kah Lok, the famously ruthless King of Petaling Street, is having an existential crisis. Gavin, the son he tried to protect from his criminal legacy, now realizes there is no way out.
Ramalingam, the policeman still paying for one fatal miscalculation, continues to use the law to punish and reward. The rising politician Zahid exploits religion and subterranean connections to make his mark.
And the assassin Maut is in the center of the dreams and violence, executing the kingpin s last commands.
Wong Kah Lok once dreamed of the Day of Judgement. Has the day arrived?
Fiction
The Last Days
Penang, Malaysia: Clarity Publishing, 2020.
February 2020 scheduled release
Synopsis from the Author’s website
It is 1981. An aging Communist revolutionary arrives in the hazy heart of Kuala Lumpur while the country lurches towards a political turning point. A woman known only as H begins telling the fugitive’s story. But her dangerous task is complicated by the fact that by telling his story, she is diving deep into her own complicated past and her family’s own complicity in the violent days of the Emergency. As a silent assassin closes in, their lives become steadily intertwined as Malaysia’s own history—and future—becomes unrecognisable.