The write-ups on the KL Litfest (KLILF) continue in
StarMag.
Jamie Khoo writes a very good overview piece which includes this great Raman quote:
There’s a huge gap in English and Malay writing here. If we take away K.S. Maniam ... who else do we have? Where are the writers?
Kadek Kris interviews Dina Zaman about her sessions and reactions to her book
I Am Muslim. I liked Dina's message to her readers:
If you care enough about these stories, then you write them. Don’t wait for me.
Daphne Lee
interviews Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah about her teen novel
Does My Head Look Big in This? which focuses on an Australian-Palestinian Muslim girl who decides to wear the hijab. As the article points out, Randa feels it’s vital that writers who belong to ethnic minority groups write about their experiences as part of these communities.
Who knows us better than we do? We have stories that we can tell about experiences and feelings that no one else has as much knowledge of. There’s nothing like having lived through something to give weight to your description or narrative.
The
Sunday Times, meanwhile, have their story on the festival slated for
next Sunday in
Learning Curve.
The write-ups on the KL Litfest (KLILF) continue in StarMag. Jamie Khoo writes a very good overview piece which includes this great Raman quote: 
Daphne Lee interviews Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah about her teen novel Does My Head Look Big in This? which focuses on an Australian-Palestinian Muslim girl who decides to wear the hijab. As the article points out, Randa feels it’s vital that writers who belong to ethnic minority groups write about their experiences as part of these communities.
2 comments:
Malaysian writing includes both fiction and nonfiction. In a globalised world, it doesn't really matter whether a Malaysian writer is published in Kuala Lumpur, London or New York. At the moment we have a couple of Malaysian writers who have made inroads overseas: Tash Aw, Tan Twan Eng, Vyvyane Loh, Tinling Choong, Rani Manicka, Beth Yahp and Shirley Lim. (Let's not forget Karim and Kam Raslan as well.) And on the nonfiction front we have Lydia Teh, Lee Su Kim, Dina Zaman, Rehman Rashid and Adibah Amin. We also have Wong Phui Nam and Salleh Ben Joned. Are we seeing a reflowering of Malaysian writing in English at the moment? I hope so.
haha. please tell raman!
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