Girl is experiencing freedom for the first time, leaving her Malaysian-born parents and grandmother at home in Australia to travel on a scholarship to the UK. She’s meant to be writing a ‘post-colonial’ novel (though admits she doesn’t really understand quite what that means) while also working on a PhD about her beloved Sylvia Plath. After a stop in London, much of the story unfolds in the unlikely setting of Arbroath, where she has an arts residency (Yu attended one herself at Hospitalfield in the Angus town). 

But instead of being energised by her new-found liberation, Girl is plagued by self-doubt and persistent questioning of her identity. Thrown into this fragile mix is an uneasy friendship with the slightly appalling Clementine (a confidante in private, but cruel in front of their fellow scholars). She dominates Girl’s time, using her as an art model, while Girl procrastinates and questions the worth of her own work.

Yu offers sharp insights into the crisis of cultural identity experienced by immigrants and their offspring, as well as familial pressures to succeed academically and friction with parents who have grown up in a different way of life. She also shines an unflinching light on the complexities of assimilating into a sometimes-racist society, and on Girl’s cultural cringe about her Australian homeland.

But Girl’s sense of powerlessness and weakness doesn’t always engender empathy; it creates a disconnect which makes the rare occasion she stands up for herself all the more thrilling. Elsewhere, a bizarre tragedy on a rail platform and a potentially deadly confrontation both feel a little unconvincing. Yu’s prose, however, is sharp, flecked with glints of bone-dry humour, and as the book moves towards its climax with Girl’s return to family turmoil in Melbourne, it’s compellingly poignant. But The Girl is a debut that heralds a skilled and singular new talent.

But The Girl will be published on Thursday 10 August by Jonathan Cape.