Daughter Keeps Father's Work Alive

Haslina Usman (left) daughter of the late National Laureate Usman Awang, talks about keeping her father's legacy alive to Bissme S. in The Sun. :

In 2006, she republished his first and only novel, Tulang2 Berserakan, which was first published in 1966. The following year, she compiled 18 of his short stories into a book called Turunnya Sebuah Bendera.

This year, together with Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia (the national translation institute), UA Enterprise has come out with a ­collection of his poems with English translations entitled Jiwa Hamba (Enslave Soul).

With Usman’s Tulang2 Berserakan also having been translated into ­English under the title Scattered Bones, Haslina hopes to reach a new and larger audience that may have heard about him but never read his work because they are not fluent in Bahasa Malaysia.

Haslina is currently working on two collections of her father’s poems. The first is called Sahabat and it will showcase 12 of his poems in the four major languages – Bahasa Malaysia, English, Tamil and Mandarin.

This first collection should be launched on July 12, which was Usman's birthday. The second, Kekasih, is a collection of 50 poems and she is looking for illustrators and photographers to interpret her father's work.

This, I think is sad :

She recalls a painful incident at a book fair last year where she had a booth displaying her father’s books. When a young boy did not know who Usman Awang was, Haslina realised that she has to do more to ensure her father’s works reach the new, younger generation of Malaysians.

I had the pleasure of meeting Haslina at the same book fair and came away with several Of Usman Awang's novels. Am really looking forward to finding a copy of Scattered Bones to read alongside my Malay version ...

Also worth reading about Usman Awang is this piece from way back by Feisal Tehrani.