Fakes, Counterfeits, and Derivatives in Tash Aw's Five Star Billionaire

This essay intervenes in global economic discussions on counterfeit goods and piracy. Against the condemnation of fakes and counterfeit put forward by international economic bodies such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this essay argues that fakes are not straightforwardly good or bad. Instead, this article connects fakes and counterfeits to derivatives and examines how they operate in Tash Aw's Five Star Billionaire. It argues that the novel rejects simplistic moralizing and binaristic approaches to fakes and presents instead a system that allows different and multifaceted forms of value to emerge. The novel engages with fakes on multiple levels: it is itself a fake self-help manual, and it features characters whose identities are, in various ways, counterfeit. Aw depicts fake objects and people as sites of possibility in the context of copying and derivatives. Using Arjun Appadurai's argument for understanding financial derivatives as a function of language, this essay shows that Aw engages with the generative possibilities of fakeness. His novel illustrates how counterfeit goods can be more than simply inauthentic and reveals the complex negotiations involved in interpreting and translating counterfeits, as well as the promise they hold. Ultimately, the novel resists condemning fakes and insists on their doubleness and ambiguity.