
The Gift of Rain
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Narrated by:
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Gordon Griffin
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Luke Thompson
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By:
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Tan Twan Eng
About this listen
In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell.
For the first time, available as an audiobook.
The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the book-selling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits.
In 1939, 16-year-old Philip Hutton - the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families - feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei - to whom he owes absolute loyalty - is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.
©2009 Tan Twan Eng (P)2018 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"This remarkable debut saga of intrigue and akido flashes back to a darkly opulent WWII-era Malaya. Phillip Hutton, 72, lives in serene Penang comfort, occasionally training students as an akido master teacher of teachers. A visit from Michiko Murakami sends him spiraling back into his past, where he grows up the alienated half-British, half-Chinese son of a wealthy Penang trader in the years before WWII. When Hutton's father and three siblings leave him to run the family company one summer, he befriends a mysterious Japanese neighbor named Mr. Endo. Japan is on the opposing side of the coming war, but Endo paradoxically opts to train Hutton in the ways of aikido, in what both men come to see as the fulfillment of a prophecy that has haunted them for several lifetimes. When the Japanese army invades Malaya, chaos reigns, and Phillip makes a secret, very profitable deal. He cannot, however, offset the costs of his friendship with Endo. Eng's characters are as deep and troubled as the time in which the story takes place, and he draws on a rich palette to create a sprawling portrait of a lesser explored corner of the war. Hutton's first-person narration is measured, believable and enthralling." (Publishers Weekly)
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Performance
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Anna Maria has only known life inside the Pietà, an orphanage for children born of prostitutes. But the girls of the Pietà are lucky in a sense: most babies born of their station were drowned in the city’s canals. And despite the strict rules, the girls are given singing and music lessons from an early age. The most promising musicians have the chance to escape the fate of the rest: forced marriage to anyone who will have them.
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Republic of Music
- By D N Wolfe on 09-19-24
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A Fall of Marigolds
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she's made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her?
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Beautiful!
- By R. Burnham on 03-29-15
By: Susan Meissner
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This Strange Eventful History
- By: Claire Messud
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family's strangeness; of François's union with Barbara; of Chloe, the result of that union.
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Be Prepared for a Jarring Narration
- By Thomp/Suis on 05-17-24
By: Claire Messud
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Orbital
- By: Samantha Harvey
- Narrated by: Sarah Naudi
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below.
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Dull
- By ELLEZEE on 02-03-24
By: Samantha Harvey
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Eye of the Needle
- A Novel
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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His code name was “The Needle.” He was a German aristocrat of extraordinary intelligence - a master spy with a legacy of violence in his blood, and the object of the most desperate manhunt in history.... But his fate lay in the hands of a young and vulnerable English woman, whose loyalty, if swayed, would assure his freedom - and win the war for the Nazis....
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All-time great thriller, great reader, great idea
- By Glenn Hopp on 03-14-21
By: Ken Follett
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Wandering Stars
- A Novel
- By: Tommy Orange
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett, MacLeod Andrews, Alma Cuervo, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola.
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Beautiful writing and performance of realistic native family saga
- By ReallyNelie on 07-12-24
By: Tommy Orange
What listeners say about The Gift of Rain
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- T
- 10-27-19
Beautiful and thoughtful writing
This work is a beautiful story that threads its way in between thorny and eternal , profound spiritual questions. It contains violence, none of it gratuitous or excessive.
One of the two narrators is excellent. The other is to phlegmy, and not always fully differentiated between characters.
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- VEH
- 08-22-24
A powerful and moving book
Another brilliant book by Tan Twan Eng, set in the Malay region in the early days of WWII, and told through the eyes of an old man looking back on his youth during the time leading up to and including the Japanese occupation of his homeland, and the choices he made at the time. The characters are rich and fully believable, as are the plot lines of family, conflicting loyalties, loss and betrayal. The narrator is excellent. Highly recommended.
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- Ale P
- 02-07-25
Beautiful Story
Good historical novel about Malaysia and growing up under British occupation first and Japanese invasion after. Beautifully narrated.
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- glass1748
- 10-25-19
Extraordinary and Beautifully Tragic
From time to time, when listening to an Audible book, I don't mind missing a few sentences here and there. While listening to The Gift of Rain, I had to hear every word. Not only were the narrators superb, the content was, as the cover says, "robustly absorbing...achingly poignant."
My rating is 5 stars in every category.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Cynde A. Bostick
- 04-13-23
A brilliant novel in many ways
There aren’t enough words to describe the depth and beauty of the story that is told, which gripped my heart and mind in depths that I didn’t realize possible.
I will listen to this novel again and will also seek to have the printed book. Thank you to the narrator and to Audible.
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- Joy S Young
- 01-01-24
All of life’s complications are contemplated
This book is a beautiful reflection on life’s complexity and nuances- it addresses death with the subtle understanding of all its layers and emotions
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- Karen Skadsheim
- 07-25-20
The best book I’ve listened to this year
I was completely engrossed in this book. I wept and I laughed together with the characters. The story is heartbreaking, warm and historically interesting. It is very well written, and the narrator also did a fantastic job; the different voices worked perfectly. I was deeply moved and I miss the characters. I just want to read more! I highly recommend the book, just buy it! You will not regret it.
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- C. SAIDI
- 11-09-19
Historical Fiction at its best
My own grandmother had a similar story as a child in Singapore during the Japanese invasion. Was truly a blessing to listen to this story and get an idea of the strife and horrors that occurred during this war. The performances were so well performed that each character was easily distinguished immediately. True artists.
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- Martha
- 07-09-22
lovely
I thought this was lovely to listen to. All characters lived in the pages. Worth the listen but a tough story to get your head around.
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- Card
- 01-29-24
Exquisite Journey through Time
Having lived in Penang, I was taken back through the author’s detailed descriptions. Yet, it wasn’t his descriptions that kept me thoroughly engaged, but the story that wove together the shadows of lives lived by the characters before this manifestation as well as through the events of the Japanese occupation of Penang. I am wiser for having followed along with the sharing of this tale.
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