Eye On The World

Eye on the World is the third and concluding volume of Tan Kok Seng’s autobiography, where he and his young family go to bustling Hong Kong. He writes with endearing honesty about a place that seems a lot like home, yet is vastly different in many ways, and this affectionate sense of observation is carried through a round-the-world trip he embarks on. Told from the perspective of a Singaporean everyman, Kok Seng’s stories and reflections about the world are told in charmingly simple prose, enriched by his penchant for looking at the people and things around him with eyes wide open. Tan Kok Seng is the well-known author of a trilogy of books based on his life: Son of Singapore, Man of Malaysia and Eye on the World. His fourth book is a novel, Three Sisters of Sze, originally published by Heinemann Asia in 1979. Tan’s books were all written first in Chinese and afterwards ‘rendered into English’ in a collaborative effort with his former employer, Austin Coates, for whom Tan worked in Malaysia and Hong Kong. Although his four books were reprinted several times since their first publication, they were out of print for many years. The books are now available from Epigram Books. Tan resides in Singapore with his family.