Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Visiting Fatimah's Kampung


Something for Daphne Lee to cheer about!

Author and illustrator Iain Buchanan will be at Badan Warisan Malaysia this Saturday (17th) at 11.00 a.m. to talk about the creation of his new children's book Fatimah's Kampung.

Learn about his labour of love and grab this opportunity to see some of the large scale original art works that went into the making of this book.

This Malaysian Edition is published by the Consumers' Association of Penang and is available for purchase at Badan Warisan's Gift Shop. The book retails at RM65 per copy (paperback version).

Buchanan says about the book :
I needed to give my nieces and nephews, and their children, a picture of how wonderful the world can be - and a warning of how barren we can let it become; I needed to do this in a way which young and old could share, which would appeal to reason - and which would touch the heart as well.

So I set out to rescue, from those twenty years of lectures, a picture book for children about the life and death of a landscape. I wanted to tell the story of a forest, a village, and a city, and the succession from one to the other. I wanted to capture the drama of the change, what it meant to the landscape and the people who lived in it; and I wanted to do this in a way that could celebrate the detail of life, its different scales, textures, colours - from the broad panorama of a forest or a city skyline, to the minutiae of things, like the fretwork on a balcony or the ants on a leaf. A book like this, I reckoned, would do all I needed to do: it would celebrate the joys that Malaysia had given me.
Badan Warisan Malaysia is at No 2 Jalan Stonor, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.

To register, please call Yuana at the Secretariat, tel: 03 - 2144 9273 or e-mail: heritage@badanwarisan.org.my

Incidentally, Iain Buchanan will be appearing at this month's readings@seksan on 31st January. (More details later.)

9 comments:

Satima Flavell said...

That sounds like a lovely book, Sharon. Do you know if it will be available in Oz?

bibliobibuli said...

doubt it - unless a way is found! will ask.

Anonymous said...

Iain said something about it being available in Germany I believe. Or was it Brussels? Perhaps some Australian publisher will look into buying the distribution rights. - Daphne Lee

Anonymous said...

ooooooonice!

Anonymous said...

There's nothing in there about how he wanted to make money from it.

If he really wanted to do all that he could have just set up a website :)

Anonymous said...

Anonymous: A website just wouldn't be the same. In my opinion, there's nothing quite like a book - the smell, the feel, the wholeness of it - to deliver an idea and a dream. You can't curl up in bed with a website. No, not even with a laptop. Not very comfy. - Daphne Lee

Anonymous said...

Daphne -

I understand and appreciate that. If he had said that, I'd have understood why he didn't just make a website. But he didn't say that, you did.

If he wanted to do what he said he wanted to do, it would have been much better for him to put up a website. He would have reached a lot more people a lot faster :)

Buddhaphish said...

Browsed through it at Times bookstore at Pavilion and it looks like a possible classic! The illustrations are so wonderful and in-depth. Loved the details of the typical Malaysian tropical rainforest. Will be picking this up soon!

Martin Bradley said...

I MUST get hold of this book. It is a pity that I am not able to meet with Iain himself - but I am entertaining guests here in Perak the weekend of the Seksan reading. But if Iain is ever in my area........