The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) is Tash Aw's critically acclaimed first novel, set in 1940s British-ruled Malaya, which is now called Malaysia.

The novel incorporates some historical events, and its characters may temporarily take the roles of real people, for example Johnny Lim acts as Lai Teck in the Batu Caves massacre, though there is otherwise little similarity between them.

Between the wars, Johnny Lim becomes a successful businessman running Tiger Tan’s textile shop in Kampar, a town near Ipoh in the tin-mining Kinta Valley of Malaysia.

Booklist called The Harmony Silk Factory "an impressive contribution to a literature for which Conrad and Maugham are famous".

[3] Publishers Weekly also reviewed the book, writing "Aw's prose, though often witty and taut, is not equally convincing in all its guises".