Excerpt from We, the Survivors by Tash Aw, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I said, 'They're Nigerian.' I'd seen an article in the Nanyang Siang Pau about Nigerian students coming to Malaysia, falling into debt after they graduated and being unable to buy a ticket home. I remember thinking, Must be really desperate to come to college here.

'Shut your mouth,' Keong said. 'Nigerian your ass. You don't know anything.'

As I looked at them, I got the feeling that they were floating through the city, unattached to anything around them. Their music was the only thing that seemed real – a link to their home. That was why they were listening to it so loudly, I thought. But they were thousands of miles away, and something in the way they talked to each other, shouting over the music and laughing in the half-dark street, made me realise that they would probably never return to where they came from. And suddenly I thought, I am just like them, I am floating through life.

'What the fuck,' Keong said. There was a note of excitement in his voice. Two guys in the group had started fighting, that kind of messy scuffling that happens when people are drunk, not really a proper fight, just grappling with each other, tumbling into the road. A car passed by and had to swerve to avoid them. The driver leaned on the horn for a long time – it was a Kancil, the noise of the honking as it drove off was high-pitched, like a cheap child's toy that you buy in the night market. It made us laugh. A few minutes later the men were joking and talking again as though nothing had happened. We stopped looking at them – they were nothing special, they were just like us, just hanging out with friends. Keong was texting his new girlfriend, reading out her messages to me. Of course he was exaggerating. I knew she didn't think he was the handsomest guy in the world. In fact I'm sure she didn't even exist. But I went along with it – that's what you do with old friends. You take an interest in their lives, even when they're lying.

Then suddenly we heard a commotion – more shouting. We looked up from our phones and saw three police cars and another three unmarked ones surrounding the Nigerian guys. Everyone was yelling. There were a lot of cops, I couldn't count them. They pushed one guy against a car. I could hear him shouting in English, No drugs no drugs I don't have anything! But they handcuffed him anyway and made him sit on the kerb just like his dozen or so friends. At first the Nigerians were arguing, shouting at the police. They were big guys, much taller than us, and maybe they thought they could get out of trouble by being loud, but they didn't know what the police were like. I couldn't see what happened, there were too many bodies in the way, but all at once everything became quiet, and one of the men was lying on the ground, one arm around his head, the other one stretched out as if he was reaching for something. He wasn't moving. After a while, some of them started to plead – we could hear them from across the street. Their voices were soft and rich and deepened each time they said the word Please. Please. The sound of the word made me feel as if I was stepping off solid earth and falling into an abyss. I wanted it to stop.

'Just pay them,' Keong said. 'Get all the damn cash out of your pockets. Just pay.' But we knew they had no money to bribe the cops. I'm sure they understood the system just as well as we did, they just didn't have the money. Keong shook his head. 'Aiyo cham lor, lock-up for you tonight my friends.' When you've grown up in the kinds of places that we have, you know what's in store for you.

A big police truck arrived and picked up all the Nigerians. While it was still parked, one of the cops came over to buy some cigarettes. We asked him what was going on. He said, 'Local people – we don't like seeing Mat Hitam around.' He lit a cigarette with a silver Zippo lighter. 'We're like the town council, just cleaning the trash off the streets.'

Excerpted from We, the Survivors by Tash Aw. Copyright © 2019 by Tash Aw. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.