Teoh Yun Ling was just seventeen when she first heard whispers of a mysterious Japanese gardener named Aritomo. But it is not until years laterafter the Japanese occupation of Malaya and the devastating loss of her sister in a brutal war campthat she seeks him out in the remote Cameron Highlands.

Aritomo, once the gardener to the Emperor of Japan, is a man of precision, mystery, and immense talent. Yun Ling asks him to design a garden in memory of her sisteran act of devotion, but also defiance. When Aritomo refuses, he offers instead to teach her, guiding her through the intricate philosophy and practice of Japanese gardening. As Yun Ling learns to shape the landscape, she is also forced to confront the tangled roots of her own historygrief, guilt, and a nation’s unspoken wounds.

Set against the lush, mist-shrouded mountains of postwar Malaya, The Garden of Evening Mists is a story of forbidden love, buried secrets, and the delicate balance between remembering and forgetting.

An International Bestseller. Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize. Winner of The Man Asian Literary Prize.