Tough Talker

For distinguished novelist and martial-arts expert TAN TWAN ENG, it’s mind over muscle every time, writes STEPHEN MCCARTY

- Stephen Mccarty

HOLLYWOOD A-LISTER Steven Seagal connected with some deep, spiritual ridicule when he claimed to be the reincarnation of a 17th-century Tibetan monk. He further endured some deep, political ridicule when deep, spiritually compassionate President Vladimir Putin made him a Russian citizen.

But though it may seem outlandish, there’s another achievement for which action hero and martial-arts master Seagal goes criminally unrecognised: inspiring the oeuvre of a winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. And if that sounds like a movie plot too far, then let the celebrated author in question explain.

“I was 17 or 18 when I realised I didn’t want to reach middle age without having acquired a skill or become good at something,” says Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng, 45. “I couldn’t play a musical instrument and it was too late to start. But thanks to my father I was a great fan of martial-arts movies – and Steven Seagal had just made his first. His techniques were impressive; he was graceful, fast, brutal. I took up aikido and became obsessed: I attended classes five or six times a week, went to seminars with Japanese masters, read books, watched videos and had endless discussions with training partners about the principles of aikido and other martial arts.

“This went on for 11 years, then one day I’d had enough and stopped. But martial-arts training is mental as well as physical and what I learned about aikido continues to influence me.”