Chiew-Siah Tei was born and raised in Tampin, a small town in southern Malaysia. A bilingual writer, she has won a series of awards with her Chinese prose, including the Hua Zong International Chinese Fiction Award. She scripted Night Swimmer which won Best Short Film at Vendome International Film Festival. Her play, Three Thousand Troubled Threads, was staged at Edinburgh International Festival. Little Hut of Leaping Fishes is her first novel in English.