He was paid a total of £500,000 (RM3.5mil) by publishers in Britain, the United States and around the world for his very first manuscript. Which is now being translated into 10 languages. And he's Malaysian. Meet the firsttime author who's been creating a buzz in the publishing world, Tash Aw.

TASH Aw prefers the road not taken when it comes to what to write. He'd rather make things up than follow the signpost that says, ‘Write what you know best'.

"I find personal information too difficult to handle, too stifling. You feel too obliged to stick to the truth, even when it doesn't suit the novel. For that reason, I never ever use anything from my own or my family's life."

Tash Aw has set the publishing world abuzz with his first novel set in 1940s Malaya.

The author of The Harmony Silk Factory was responding, in an e-mail, to whether the book was his story in any way. Malaysian-born Aw now lives in London, where he writes full-time.

"Autobiographical novels are often very moving for the writer, but really boring for everyone else.

"The break-up of a relationship, for example, might be the most important thing to you, but it might bore everyone else to tears. Likewise, although I think I had a very rich childhood, I don't want to inflict my memories on anyone else because they'd probably find them really dull."

Harmony is cocooned by the limestone outcrops of the Kinta Valley, in 1940s Malaya. It tells of poor boy Johnny Lim's ruthless schemes to attain wealth and fame, from three perspectives: that of his son Jasper, his wife Snow, and a friend, Peter Wormwood.

How does 33-year-old Aw get – spot on – the colours and concerns of life, pre-Independence: for example, Tupperware parties, purple Fanta served on festive occasions, youths naming themselves after Hollywood stars.

"I'm not quite sure how I got these details – I certainly didn't research them. Somehow, when I sat down to write those bits of the book, I already knew these bits of information. I must have just absorbed them along the way. I'm a real magpie – I Hoover up bits of useless information all the time."

To him, though, the setting of a book is secondary: "The setting is quite incidental to the plot. What's important is how the characters feel, what they do. That was my aim – to play with people's expectations. You're never quite sure what you're going to get with this book."

Readers get contrasting versions of what Johnny did, and why, as narrated by Jasper, Snow and Wormwood. What inspired this eclectic cast of characters?

"None of them is based on anyone I know. They weren't really inspired by anything or anyone in particular, but rather, grew organically over the course of five or six years.

"I got the idea for Johnny's (alleged) betrayal from the story of Lai Tek (the Vietnamese secretary-general of the Malayan Communist Party, who switched from being a British agent to a Japanese one during WWII), but everything else about him was simply made up. Peter began life as a parody of a Somerset Maugham character, but quickly became something much more substantial."

Which part was harder to write, Jasper or Worm-wood?

"Jasper. The reasons for this lie in what I said earlier about the distance between the writer and his subject. Jasper, having grown up in Malaysia, had (on paper at least) more similarities to me and my life, whereas Peter had none.

"Ironically, this made Peter much easier to write because I was completely free to construct him as I wished."

What about comments that Snow's voice was insipid? Did he have difficulty putting himself in her shoes?

"No. I try not to think of how ‘women' would behave in general, but rather how this particular woman that I'm writing about would behave. The same is true of my approach to men.

"In many ways, Snow's section is the most adventurous of the three. I took the biggest risks here. I wanted to give her all the things that are traditionally given to men: the action/adventure narrative, the road trip, the thriller. I wanted to play with readers' expectations of a diary written by a Chinese woman in the 1940s – it isn't at all sentimental or even intimate. She tried to ‘tell it like it is', and is really quite hard."

Aw has always written, "little stories here and there, student journalism, etc". But making the leap to a full-length novel requires an impetus, let alone faith and perseverance. What made him start in the first place?

"Just the simple conviction that this was my vocation, that I loved words and had an ability to use language and to tell stories. Later it became an obsession. Then I realised I was in too deep and couldn't go back; then I had to pay the rent. Very simple, really...."

He should have enough for rent, and more, with the success of Harmony, which has been hailed by some reviewers as comparable with British writers like Joseph Conrad, Anthony Burgess and Somerset Maugham, all of who shaped literary perspectives of Malaysia in the past.

Do the accolades affect him?

"It doesn't make much difference to my working life, particularly since I don't pay all that much attention to reviews. I don't need good reviews to assure me that my work is good, because I know there are still aspects of it that are truly appalling. Neither do I take to heart bad reviews because I have enough confidence in the general strength of my work.

"I am, however, encouraged by comments made by established writers whom I have always admired. If someone like Doris Lessing or Chang-Rae Lee likes my work, that's all I need in terms of encouragement – they render a thousand reviews (good or bad) utterly useless.

While he's buoyed up by positive feedback from contemporary authors, it's the older names he draws inspiration from. Faulkner, Nabokov, Conrad, Burgess, Melville, Steinbeck hog this list.

"Why? Because they are all great stylists who take huge risks, have towering, unpredictable imaginations and yet manage to retain an all-encompassing sense of humanity and compassion and understanding."

What would he say to Malaysian writers who dream of making a global impact?

"Stay true to what you think suits you best. Don't change your style for anyone and keep working, even if people tell you it isn't going to succeed. Don't ever think of potential riches or fame. The moment you start thinking of international glamour, you're finished as a writer, and you'll probably never attain those ridiculous dreams.

"Writing is still one of the few professions that involves purity and integrity (though, admittedly, this is decreasing). I know it sounds terribly clichéd and schmaltzy, but you must try and focus on the work you believe in. But do bear in mind that it is really hard work, and that there is a very fine line between self-belief and self-delusion.

"There is no shame in admitting that your novel hasn't worked out and that you have to stay with your day job at the accountancy firm. It's better than living in penury while bashing away at the international epic that's just never going to work. There's nothing romantic about being the starving artist."

Aw is working on his second novel, set in Indonesia and Malaysia in the 1960s. Proof that the rewards he gets from writing outweigh the hardships.

"I feel incredibly lucky that my work involves something that I love. I feel quite comfortable being a writer, as if this is what I was meant to do – the way other people might feel really at home in a law firm or an investment bank, or on a construction site or a farm. Everyone has his or her vocation, and writing just happens to be mine.

"Every time I sit down to write, or even to read, I feel there's still so much out there to discover, to achieve, and that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. The possibilities of words, of language, are immense. The bad times (and there are many) can be awful, really, really terrible. But that's all part of being a writer, and I need the lows to appreciate the highs."

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