Reading Makes You a Better Person

The fundamental difference between adults is those who read and those who don't ... Those who read are better people. They are able to travel with their imagination, so they can look at things from different perspectives and don't take things at face value. They are more mature and tolerant and therefore more realistic about the complexity of life. More than with cinema and theatre, books not only generate emotion but make people think.

Italian writer Vincenzo Cerami speaking at the Melbourne Writers Festival. Cerami collaborated with actor/director Roberto Benigni on the Oscar winner Life is Beautiful (La Vita e' Bella).

Shared History, Shared Culture

History helps us understand who we are and where we have come from. This, in turn, allows us to appreciate other races whose ancestors too may have come from afar. And all of us, their descendants, are lucky enough to meet and mingle on this soil which we call home. ... Our forebears may have journeyed here centuries ago but it is the inward journey, one of mutual respect and trust, we should continue today.

I wish a very happy Merdeka to all Malaysians today, despite the sadness that many feel (including but certainly not limited to this.)

It is so nice to See Malaysian authors featured in the National Day Special Supplement in The Star today.

Tunku Halim (above) talks about how Malaysian history that belongs to all while Lydia Teh (left) talks about food and festivals and the other things that make Malaysians of all races Different But Same.

Incidentally, Hal has a fascinating Merdeka piece on his blog about how an Englishman Tuanku Simon Mackay was appointed Malaysia’s 10th Yang DiPertuan Agong.

Still Edgy After All These Years

Peace of mind doesn't always seem to be the territory of a successful author. This may be I think be for the best (at least for us readers!) since mid-life complacency probably wouldn't auger well for ongoing creativity.

Novelist Rachel Cusk, whose new novel (her 7th) is The Bradshaw Variations, is compared to "a highly strung racehorse" by Lynn Barber in The Observer. The author seems to have it all, says Barber :

She is still extremely good looking, at 42, with a slim figure and long, dark, shiny hair. She comes from a wealthy Catholic family, was educated at St Mary's Convent in Cambridge and then read English at Oxford. She published her first novel, Saving Agnes, in 1993 and won the Whitbread first novel prize. There have been seven novels, including her new one, and two books of non-fiction.

but :

... sees herself as embattled, hounded by critics, loathed by other mothers, attacked with slings and arrows from every side. She says that when she cycles to school with her daughters, other women hiss abuse at her from Range Rovers. She used to describe herself as a red-blooded feminist but nowadays admits: "I find that I like women less than I did." She avoids school gates and places where other mothers congregate.

At The Times author Nick Hornby talks to Kate Muir who asks why despite the author's success (Book sales over 5 m. A Sundance-winning film. A new novel out. A happy marriage. ) :

.. he is ... not smug, or at least satisfied? Why does he virtually chain-smoke in our interview, and confess cheerily that he is in therapy once a week? Why does he avoid the glitz of London’s literary salons? Why is he addicted to bucket-sized Starbucks, when he could afford an espresso machine or go to any of the lovely Italianate joints near his office in Islington for a real coffee?

He also talks on video about his new book Juliet, Naked which tackles :

... among other things, ageing and creativity, as well as fatherhood and geekery.

The Winners Are…

The cover story of Starmag's ReadsMonthly supplement was of course the results of the Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards.

Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad (left) who edited and compiled Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Selected Letters to World Leaders talks about how the idea for the winning book came about during a casual meeting with the former PM three years ago. The English edition of the book book has apparently sold more than 15,000 copies, but it hasn't been reviewed in the press at all. There is apparently sufficient material for a second collection.

Robert Raymer, the fiction winner says :

I felt that I had a good chance of being in the top three, and I really thought that either Preeta Samarasan or Tan Twan Eng would win!

He says that in writing his stories :

I always take notes of people I see and hear. For Lovers and Strangers, most of the characters were developed through real people like my ex-wife, my mother-in-law, and an uncle.

(Shall I be nervous next time Robert comes to stay?)

Also in today's Starmag, Daphne Lee writes about books with furry covers!

Of Sex, Death and Quantum Mechanics

The Guardian has released its longlist for the First Book Award. It's a pretty eclectic collection, taking in debut works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Claire Armitstead, chair of judges and the Guardian's literary editor says :

This year the longlist reflects the way in which the divisions between genres are shifting and collapsing and shows the energy and imagination with which the best new writers are confronting a world in transition.

The selected titles are :

The Secret Lives of Buildings - Edward Hollis

Direct Red - Gabriel Weston

The Strangest Man - Graham Farmelo

A Swamp Full of Dollars - Michael Peel

The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton

The Wilderness - Samantha Harvey

The Girl With Glass Feet - Ali Shaw

The Selected Works of TS Spivet - Reif Larsen

An Elegy for Easterly - Petina Gappah

The two fiction choices are Samantha Harvey for her "moving portrayal of an Alzheimer's patient in The Wilderness", and The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw "which tells the magical story of Ida Maclaird, who is turning into glass".

Another book on the list that sounds particualrly interesting : Gabriel Weston's memoir Direct Red chronicles life as a surgeon:

... with eye-opening stories of panic and incompetence that some of us might, in truth, not like to know about (and) addresses some fascinating questions, such as what is it like to cut into someone else's body? Or how do you tell a beautiful, seemingly fit young man that he will be dead in days?

You can read extracts of all of the titles here.

Postscript :

An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of short fiction, and is featured here in The Short Review.

Life After Booze

Much ink has been spilled on the question of why so many writers are alcoholics. Of America’s seven Nobel laureates, five were lushes—to whom we can add an equally drunk-and-disorderly line of Brits: Dylan Thomas, Malcolm Lowry, Brendan Behan, Patrick Hamilton, Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, all doing the conga to (in most cases) an early grave. According to Donald Goodwin in his book “Alcohol and the Writer”: Writing involves fantasy; alcohol promotes fantasy. Writing requires self-confidence; alcohol bolsters confidence. Writing is lonely work; alcohol assuages loneliness. Writing demands intense concentration; alcohol relaxes.

But what happens when a writer stops drinking? asks Tom Shone in Intelligent Life Magazine. Does the writing become pedestrian, lose its vigour? He looks at the careers of some of the greatest American authors - F Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Hemingway. Raymond Carver stands out as the writer who eventually gave up the bottle after a long struggle and realised a new creative vitality :

For a year he wrote nothing (“I can’t convince myself it’s worth doing”), just played bingo and got fat on doughnuts, but then he remarried, and he went on to write some of his best work—he was nominated for a Pulitzer prize for his story collection, “Cathedral”, illuminating the downtrodden blue-collar lives he had written about before with unexpected moments of revelation and connection.

Pictures of the "Poppies"

So here's more about the Popular Bookstore Reader's Choice Awards a couple of days back. (I posted results here.)


Nominees Brian Gomez, Amir Muhammad, Adeline Loh during the speeches. The guest of honour was YM Professor Diraja Ungku Abdul Aziz bin Ungku Abdul Hamid, former Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Malaya. He spoke among other things about the necessity of using Malay for all subjects on the school curriculum and the need to vastly expand the translation of scientific texts into Malay.

The welcome address was delivered by Mr. Vangatharaman Ramayah, Director of Popular Holdings Limited who talked about the history of the bookstore and its broad reach in the Asia Pacific region (it has a total of 129 retail stores and is currently expanding into Myanmar).

Then it was time for each of the nominated titles to be highlighted on the screen above with a brief biodata of each author. My favourite moment though came when the MC had to read out the name of Brian Gomez' blog in this august company!


Then the results were read out in nail-biting reverse order. The first prize winners for the fiction and non-fiction categories won RM1,500 each and a trophy, while second prize winners received RM1,000 and third prize winners RM500.

Above, Tan Twan Eng's mum, Sally (in pink), receiving his award from Ungku Aziz on her son's behalf since he is in South Africa.

A group photo of all the winners in or their representatives. (Though I think some at the edges got squashed out. Apologies.)

A more informal shot afterwards - June Wong (Star executive editor) holds a copy of Adibah Amin's Glimpses, Robert Raymer (red shirt - behind her); Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad holds a copy of Dr Mahathir's Selected Letters to World Leaders which he co-wrote with the former PM; Vangatharaman Ramayah (in the black suit), Director of Popular Holdings Limited; Sally Tan (the lady in pink); Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd executive director Lim Lee Ngoh (holding Preeta's book) ; and last but not least, Kee Thuan Chye holding his copy of March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up.

I was very happy for Robert, winning the fiction category, as I know that this will be important encouragement for him. He looked scrape-me up-off-the-floor-it-can't-be-happening-surprised at the result.

Congrats to Popular books and to the sponsoring newspapers for creating a buzz about Malaysian books and involving readers. This is a very worthwhile event. I must say, though, that I would really welcome an award given by a panel of judges in addition to this popularity contest. (Mind you, there is no literary award without at least some controversy and there is always bound to be disagreement about the results.)

The important thing about any literary award is the conversation it creates, and the recognition and encouragment it gives writers. The "Poppies" succeeded very well on both counts.

(More at The Star.)

Student Writers

I thought this was a very nice story in today's Star about the fifth form class at SMK Bandar Baru Sungai Buloh who decided to turn their English essays into a book, rather than waste them. (There was another piece in the paper on Sunday.)

Students' written work takes off when they know that at the end of all their effort there is a real audience to communicate with, and nothing creates a sense of pride like seeing your work valued in this way. Well done to their teacher for encouraging them.

Wouldn't it be nice if efforts like this were so commonplace they didn't even make the newspapers?

If you are an English teacher and haven't done so already, you might like to pick up The Freedom Writer's Diary (or watch the film) for inspiration.

New Asian Short Stories

From Professor Quayum :

CALL FOR SHORT STORIES

Asian and Asian diasporic writers, new or established, are invited to send short stories in English for a volume of NEW ASIAN SHORT STORIES to be published by Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia). The book will be edited by Prof. Mohammad A. Quayum whose details are given below. We invite short stories not exceeding 6000 words and NOT published or submitted for publication elsewhere to be submitted to the editor electronically at mquayum@gmail.com, by 15 February 2010. The book will be released in September 2010, and all successful contributors will be sent a complimentary copy of the book upon publication.

About the Editor

Mohammad A. Quayum has taught at universities in Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and the US, and is currently professor of English at International Islamic University Malaysia. He is the author or editor of nineteen books (published by Penguin, Pearson Education, Peter Lang, Prentice-Hall, Marshall Cavendish etc), and his scholarly articles have appeared in distinguished literary journals in the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, Taiwan, India, and Malaysia.

Please circulate this information to any writer in English of Asian origin you know.

Gedung Kartun Seized

Received this press statement today and very much share the concerns :

Problematic licensing laws hampers distribution of new cartoon

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) and Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI) are concerned about the confiscation of hundreds of copies of a cartoon magazines on current issues edited by prominent cartoonist, Zunar. The confiscation smacks of harassment and censorship of discussion of current issues.

On 25 August, officials from the Control of Publication Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs seized copies of the inaugural issues of Gedung Kartun (Cartoon Store) from the publisher's office in Kuala Lumpur. According to the magazine Chief Editor Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, better known as Zunar, more than 400 copies were seized. When contacted by CIJ, the Department's Assistant Secretary Abdul Razak Abdul Latif said the magazine was confiscated "primarily" due to the lack of a publication permit as well as for content "checking". He was unable to confirm the amount seized.

However, Zunar disputed the lack of permit as the reason and claimed that he had obtained the permit's serial number verbally. He said the officers insisted on confiscating the magazines despite informing them of the verbal permission. Zunar said he was then told to ask for an official letter regarding the status of the permit.

The permit requirement for publications is legislated under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, and failing to meet the requirement can result in imprisonment for up to three years or a fine of up to RM20 000 (USD5700).

The confiscation is a form of harassment against those who publish alternative interpretations of current events. Zunar is a long time contributor to online news site Malaysiakini and is well-known for his political cartoons. Gedung Kartun, a bi-weekly slated for the market in September, features drawings that discuss the controversial death of the political assistant from opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) at the Selangor Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office as well as one involving the Prime Minister Najib Razak. Zunar said the magazine is about alternative humour.

The action once again shows how the licensing regime is used arbitrarily to control expression. The employment of such law does not inspire confidence with the Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussien's announcement that the law will be reviewed to keep up with the demands of the people. To show that the Minister appreciates the people's criticism of the law, he should stop any further practices of harsh measures such as the arbitrary confiscation of publications.

CIJ and WAMI urge the Ministry to return copies of Gedung Kartun to its publisher so that it can be made available to the public. We also urge the Ministry to reveal what it's plan is for the supposed review of the PPPA and to include civil society in its consultations.

Issued by

Gayathry Venkiteswaran
Executive Director, CIJ

and Wong Chin Huat
Chairman, WAMI

For more information please contact Wai Fong at 03 4023 0772

More here and here. And you can see some of the cartoons here.

Robert Wins a Poppy!

I just got back from Bookfest@Malaysia at KL Convention Centre. I'm sure you are all dying to hear the results of the Star-Popular Book Awards so straight to it! :

The Star Reader's Choice Awards

Fiction Category :

Robert Raymer - Lovers and Strangers Revisited
Preeta Samarasan - Evening is the Whole Day
Tan Twan Eng - The Gift of Rain

Non-Fiction :

Tun Mahathir & Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad - Dr. Mahathir's Letters to World Leaders
Adibah Amin - Glimpses : Cameos of Malaysian Lives
Kee Thuan Chye : March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up

Berita Harian Anugerah Pilihan Pembaca 2009 *

Fiction :

Siti Rosmizah - Andai Itu Takdirny (If It's His/Her Fate)
Aisya Sofea - Selagi Ada Dia - (As Long as He's Here)
Ramlee Awang Murshid - Hijab Sang Pencinta (My Darling's Hijab)

Non-Fiction :

Dr Tengku Asmadi - Teknik Memotivasikan Anak Cara Positive (Positive Ways to Motivate Your Child)
Hadiah Untuk Muslimah (Gifts for Muslim Women)
Langkah Bijak Ushahawan Terbilang Ushawan Terbilang (Wise Steps for Entrepreneurs)

I will put up pictures of the event and add a bit more commentary soon.
(*Translations of titles are my own feeble attempts and I've included them here for overseas readers who will be interested to see what is most popular here - please correct me if I haven't got it right and I'll make changes.)

Ramadan Memories

In The Sunday Times Wan Ahmad Hulaimi (who writes as Awang Goneng) talks about his memories of Ramadan days when he was growing up in Terengganu. It's a lovely piece, and of course, if you want a bigger serving of Terengganu fare, you can pop along to his excellent blog.

(Sorry it took me a while to post this - I couldn't locate it on the NST website and then a kind soul came to my rescue via Twitter.)

Ika's Fantasy

It’s a passion, I can’t stop doing it. I can’t cry over a rejection and then not write anymore. I learned the hard way. The rejections were disheartening but you learn to do it again.

Young Malaysian fantasy writer Ika Vanderkoeck has just had a a short story published in an international anthology Ages Of Wonder, and talks to Allan Koay in The Star about the tough road ahead and those who have helped her on her journey so far, including a very valuable mentor Janny Wurts.

Allan's portrait of her is spot on (as anyone who saw her at Readings@Seksan will agree) :

Meeting Ika for the first time, one can’t help but be prone to fantasy cliches in trying to describe her. “Elfin” comes to mind immediately – she is petite, soft-spoken, waif-like, almost like a character straight out of a fantasy novel.

Uma and the Whale

Herman Melville's magnum opus, much like its namesake -- that tireless, relentless, white whale -- is considered by many to be unconquerable. To readers the world over, Moby-Dick is often their Moby-Dick. That one unattainable goal; constantly teasing, tormenting, mocking. What would be their crowning glory in an otherwise successful life of reading.

Umapagan Ampikaipakan in today's New Straits Times pays homage to Melville's novel and talks about our enduring fascination for whales.

Authors' Letters Go the Way of the Dinosaur

When was the last time you took pen to paper and wrote a letter? In this digital age, we are at risk of losing one of the greatest communication tools of all-time - the letter. ...

The Abebooks blog looks at a treasury of author letters that they have up for sale. Here's Ray Bradbury's illustrated letter to Herman Kogan (left); an invitation to tea with Conan Doyle; Vladimir Nabokov's contract with Doubleday, and much more.

But the question they raise is a very important one:

Today we can look back at the great minds of yesteryear through their letters that collectors and libraries treasure. Will anyone keep the emails of Ian McEwan or the Twitter tweets of Neil Gaiman?

In a piece at The New York Times some time back, Rachel Donadio addressed these same concerns :

The problem isn't that writers and their editors are corresponding less, it's that they're corresponding infinitely more -- but not always saving their e-mail messages. Publishing houses, magazines and many writers freely admit they have no coherent system for saving e-mail, let alone saving it in a format that would be easily accessible to scholars. Biography, straight up or fictionalized, is arguably one of today's richest literary forms, but it relies on a kind of correspondence that's increasingly rare, or lost in cyberspace.

It isn't just letters that future generations will miss out on as they try to gain an insight into the inner workings of authors' minds - but also perhaps things like notebooks, drafts and annotated manuscripts since so much of our thinking now is done at the keyboard. Maybe authors need to be proactive in storing their stuff and letting others know where and how it is stored?

Welcome to “Real Life”

Writing is as real as anything in your life, and probably more real than most things.** So stop calling that other stuff “real life.”

This is a lovely piece by Mur Lafferty to poke the excuse-making writers among you (including meself!).

Some Hanky-Panky with Not Booker Shortlist

Reader's votes are now in for The Guardian blog's Not the Booker, and the shortlist is :

Rana Dasgupta – Solo – 85 votes
James Palumbo – Tomas – 81 votes
Eleanor Thom – The Tin Kin – 79 votes
Simon Crump – Neverland – 65 votes
MJ Hyland – This Is How – 43 votes
Jenn Ashworth – Intimacy – 41 votes

Though he suspected that there was some fishy business going on with the voting, Sam Jordison feels that it added rather to the fun. He now promises to read each of these titles in turn, in alphabetical order, and invites the public to read along with him.

August Ceritaku@Readings

Hurray, Bernice has organised another night of readings and storytelling next Sunday (30th at 9.30) at No Black Tie with a stellar line-up. There's a RM30 cover charge.

No Black Tie is at 17, Jalan Mesui, KL.

Following the Linggi

I almost missed this very nice piece from Saturday's Star. Our friend Caving Liz makes a journey to find the Linggi River in Negri Sembilan, following in the footsteps of intrepid 19th century British traveller Isabella Bird.

Bird was probably the greatest of the women explorers of her day, and travelled to many other parts of the world. The Golden Chersonese and The Way Thither (1883) is an incredible account of a journey made through the Malay Penininsula, and you can learn exactly what places like Malacca, Kuala Lumpur and Kuala Kangsar were like back then. And I love to imagine the lady trecking through steaming jungle and riding on an elephant wearing her long Victorian dresses.

(Should your curiosity to read the book be stirred, you can read it online here.)

Sufian Sambal and The Art of BiblioStalking

Although he doesn’t write specifically for adolescents, I think Sufian Abas has the sort of weird and wonderful imagination needed to create the sort of romantic fantasies teenagers would be only too eager to lose themselves in. They would most certainly identify with Sufian’s love-sick characters, his delusional young men and wide-eyed young women, all wandering through a world lit by fluorescent strips and filled with dusty roads, stuffy LRT coaches and gaudy fast food joints. ... It’s a world that smells, sweetly and sharply, of rotting garbage and paint-stripper; a world where ceilings leak and the plumbing is jammed with blood and guts and broken hearts. A horrific world, a romantic world, a world swollen with unrequited love and lost dreams. Just the sort of landscape hyper-sensitive, melodramatic young adults like to pretend they inhabit.

Daphne Lee recommends Sufian Abas' new collection Matanya Teleskop, Hatinya Kapal Dalam Botol Kaca (The Eye is a Telescope, the Heart a Ship in a Glass Bottle)* as a teen-read in Starmag today, and says the stories are (and don't you just love this analogy) :

... delicious – like washing down extra spicy sambal with fizzy Fanta orange.

Abby Wong also writes a very enjoyable column about her bookish family. And how important it is to make sure that a future spouse is bookishly compatible!

(Incidentally, on the topic of judging compatability via the bookshelf, you might like to check out Rands in Repose on the topic of being a bookstalker.)
*Available at Silverfish Books, or email Sufian Abas at dvinecomdy@hotmail.com.

Discounts at Borders

Bobbie at Borders sent me news of some very welcome discounts - Dan Brown readers are sure to be overjoyed! (Click poster up to size to read.)

Postscript :

Shirley added this in the comments :

Hi Sharon, thanks for putting this up! Just a note - there are more than 250 specially selected bestselling titles on 25% discount in stores.

I'm gonna title-drop here... Malayan Trilogy, Evening is the Whole Day, Lovely Bones, Graveyard Book, Fahrenheit 451, Atlas Shrugged, many local titles including Robert Raymer's Lovers & Strangers ... so there is definitely way more than Dan Brown here.

Last day on 31st Aug. :)

Holroyd's Magic Carpet

Sebastian Barry has won a second major prize for The Secret Scripture, carrying off the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction (Britain's oldest literary award) last night.

The award for biographer, meanwhile, went to Michael Holroyd, who has won it more than four decades after his wife Margaret Drabble won for fiction with Jerusalem the Golden! His book A Strange Eventful History, is about 19th-century Shakespearean actors, Ellen Terry and Henry Irving and their families. It was written over a period of seven years, while Holroyd was suffering from bowel cancer. He says :

Whenever I could escape from the sick room, I used to immerse myself in another world, of actors in the Edwardian age ... I hoped that need to get away from sickness and enter another world would give the writing an additional intensity. It was a magic carpet, and I was the time traveller.

You can read reviews of the book at The Washington Post and The Independent.

Another Glimpse into a Dystopian Future

... people kept asking me what happened two minutes after Oryx and Crake ended. I returned to this world because ... I didn’t know. So in order to find out what happened, then I had to go back and write another book.

The novel I'm most looking forward to reading this year is undoubtedly Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood which is a sister volume to the distopian Oryx and Crake with some overlapping characters. Sinclair McKay interviews the author in The Telegraph and gives us a peep into the concerns of the new book :

Here, through the eyes of two female characters, Toby and Ren, we learn of the days that lead up to a horrible pandemic that ravages humanity – forget coughs and sneezes, here people melt. There is enviro-religion, overweening science, hideous sex clubs, nightmare food, grotesque cosmetic surgery. And there are also bees. ... Behind the novel is fierce environmental concern, as well as a subtler inquiry into what it is that makes us human; central to the story is a sect called God’s Gardeners who read the Bible as a profoundly green text (for instance, convincingly reinterpreting what Genesis says about man’s relationship with the animal kingdom).

Atwood's portrayal of the near future in the earlier book, was for me, extremely chilling and thoughts go back to it all the time. I think I shall have to pre-order this, so I get it the moment it hits the shops.

Atwood will be doing staged readings around the world to promote the book and raise money for environmental charities. (But, *sigh*, she isn't coming here.) And she's started a blog to keep us up to date.

Gaiman Reads from The Graveyard Book

I mentioned Neil Gaiman's award-winning The Graveyard Book the other day, and quite a few fans happened along to leave comments. Now enjoy listening to the author reading from it :

Fiction Sandwich

I'm very happy that Eric Forbes picked up a piece from this blog, my heart-felt guide to reading while eating, and published it in Quill magazine.

I still get angry with the ridiculous, overstuffed things the restaurants here claim are "sandwiches". I tell you, the Earl of Sandwich would turn in his grave.'

Above : an unacceptable "sandwich" for a reader

If the filling falls out, if substances ooze, if you can't get a good grip of it in one hand, or your mouth around it easily, then, it isn't worthy of the name and you should send it back to the kitchen with the superfluous knife and fork.

Heathrow Stories

Some lovers were parting. She must have been twenty, he a few years older. Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood was in her bag. They had oversize sunglasses and had come of age in the period between SARS and swine flu. They were dressed casually in combat trousers and T-shirts. It was the intensity of their kiss that first attracted my attention, but what had seemed like passion from afar was revealed at closer range to be unusual devastation. She was shaking with sorrowful disbelief, he was cradling her in his arms, stroking her short blonde hair, in which a hairclip in the shape of a tulip had been fastened. Repeatedly, they would look into each other’s eyes and then, as though thereby made newly aware of the catastrophe about to befall them, she would begin weeping once more. ... People were passing and evincing sympathy. It helped that the woman was extraordinarily beautiful. I missed her already.... We might have been ready to offer sympathy, but in actuality, there were stronger reasons to want to congratulate her for having such a powerful cause to feel sad. We should have envied her for having located someone without whom she so firmly felt she could not survive, to the gate let alone to a bare student bedroom in a suburb of Beijing. If she had been able to view her situation from a sufficient distance, she might have been able to consider it as the high point of her life.

Philosopher and author Alain de Botton has become the first ever writer in residence at Heathrow Airport, writing his new book (to be called A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary) live at Terminal 5, and incorporating passers-by into the story. It's an an appointment that Heathrow's management hope will create a positive buzz about the airport, and de Botton says :

That one of the largest organizations in the U.K. should take an interest in a book is almost quaint, like sponsoring a poet ... On behalf of my fellow beleaguered writers, it’s nice that writers seem to matter.

The book (an extract from which appears at the top of this post courtesy of The L.A.Times will be available at the end of September, and Heathrow will give away 10,000 copies to random passengers.

You can watch the BBC's report, with de Botton talking about the Heathrow assignment, on YouTube. Excursions to the airport are of course nothing new for the author, who has been taking groups of tourists there ...

Not the Booker Prize - What Readers Think

The Guardian blog invited reader nominations for the Not the Booker prize - an alternative list of novels they thought should be considered for the annual award : it includes both books that did make the Booker longlist, and many more besides which were ignored. (Tash's novel among them.)

Here's the readers' list :

1. Ghosts and Lightening by Trevor Byrne
2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
3. Map Of The Invisible World by Tash Aw
4. Summertime by JM Coetzee
5. The City and The City by China Miéville
6. John The Revelator by Peter Murphy
7. Solo by Rana Dasgupta
8. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
9. Jerusalem by Patrick Neate
10. Spirit by Gwyneth Jones
11. This Is How by MJ Hyland
12. The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan
13. The White Woman On The Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey
14. The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
15. The Harrowing by Robert Dinsdale
16. Hodd by Adam Thorpe
17. The Tin-Kin by Eleanor Thom
18.The Winter Vault by Anne Michael
19. White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
20. The Father Of Locks by Andrew Killeen
21. The Children's Book by AS Byatt
22. Stone's Fall by Iain Pears
23. Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
24. Down On Out On Murder Mile by Tony O'Neill
25. Rose by Gillian Green
26. Cockroach by Rawi Hage
27. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
28. Grace, Tamar and Laszlo The Beautiful by Deborah Kay Davies
29. Ten Storey Love Song by Richard Milward
30. Mark Illis by Tender
31. Jeff In Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
32. Little Gods by Anne Richards
33. A Kind Of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
34. Great Waters by Kit Whitfield
35. Black Rock by Amanda Smyth
36. Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane
37. Harare North by Brian Chickwava
38. Generation A by Douglas Coupland
39. Tomas by James Palumbo
40. Neverland by Simon Crump
41. The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville
42. All The Colours Of The Town by Liam McIvanney
43. Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
44. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
45. The Outlander by Gil Adamson
46. How To Paint A Dead Man by Sarah Hall

The six books with the most nominations will go on to the final round of voting. Polling day is August 23rd.

Dan Brown : Mac & Cheese

Viewed through the prism of the media, his record-breakingly popular novels are universally condemned as dishonest tat.

Andew Collins at The Times looks at the phenomena of Dan Brown (the author Steven King has called "the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese") and joins the rest of the world in the countdown to :

... the internationally synchronised publication on September 15 of Dan Brown’s next helping of processed slop.

Sequels as Homage

... the urge to write sequels and prequels is almost always an homage of sorts. We don’t want more of books we hate. The books that get re-written and re-imagined are beloved. We don’t want them ever to be over. We pay them the great compliment of imagining that they’re almost real: that there must be more to the story, and that characters we know so well — Elizabeth Bennet, for one, or Sherlock Holmes, who has probably inspired more sequels than any other fictional being — must have more to their lives.

Charles McGrath's essay on literary prequels and sequels entitled The Sincerest Form of Lawsuit Bait is at The New York Times and takes in Austen + Zombies as well as J.D Salinger's injunction to halt the publication of Fredrik Colting's 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye.

McGrath notes that :

... Mr. Colting’s book has ... become a literary cause célèbre, with a number of legal experts, including one from The New York Times, seeking to overturn the judge’s decision. The argument is that the Colting text is “transformative”: that instead of being a mere rip-off, it adds something original and substantive to Mr. Salinger’s version.

Golding the Wannabe Rapist?

Some rather unsavoury aspects of author, William Golding, have come to light after John Carey, the emeritus professor of English literature at Oxford university, was given access to a personal journal kept by Golding. Among them, that he tried to rape a 13 year old girl while a teenager himself; that as a teacher at a public school he tried to set boys against one another in the manner of Lord of the Flies; and that he depended on drink to help him fight his demons.

Kathryn Hughes on The Guardian blog is concerned that Golding will be remembered as a sensational headline, and she observes :

Golding knew perfectly well that he was leaving behind an incendiary story that Carey was bound to pass on to the rest of the world. This raises the interesting possibility that Golding was secretly keen to be shown to posterity as a bit of an animal. Much of his work, including of course Lord of the Flies, concerns the beast which lies just below man's civilised surface. What better way to advertise the authenticity of your work than to reveal just what a savage soul lurked beneath the meek and mild outer facade of the Nobel laureate and Booker prize winner?

Sam Leith in The London Evening Standard is refreshingly cynical :

The usual balls gets spouted about the “dark side of genius”, the “sliver of ice” or “demons”. But really the duty of the biographer to his publishers is to produce a news story for which a Sunday newspaper will pay: and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that a literary biography without a sex-Nazi, child-slavery, and/or hamster-rape angle is now dead in the water as a publishing proposition.

And nothing, no nothing, anyone can dig up about his private life can knock Golding off his pedestal for me. And I guess that goes for any other author I revere. In fact, for any author ...

Postscript :

Christopher Howe in The Telegraph lists some other authors who had a rather shady past. Among the revelations :

Geoffrey Chaucer faced a lawsuit alleging his rape of a girl called Cicely Champaigne, a baker's daughter.

Postscript 2

Just came across this nice quote from Paul Theroux* which seems to make sense in this context:

If you look into history, you won't find many jolly, well-balanced people who were writers. I mean, look at them. ... In a way, you can't be a writer unless you have sort of a personality problem. Balanced people don't become writers, obviously. Balanced people become gardeners, they raise happy families, they go to work every day, they smile. They have noodle salad.

(Originally from CNN website, now longer online.)

Just my Cuppa CHAI

Instant Cafe Theatre has a beautiful new home in a converted bungalow in Section 6 Petaling Jaya called House of Art and Ideas, CHAI, for short. And and on Saturday they had their grand opening with lots of things going on and art in every corner. (Take the tour here, and just see how much you would like to live in this little house.)


Of course there was the official obligatory opening with a local bigshot, and YB*, Minister of Culture and Space (above) tree planting ceremony with YB, Deputy Minister of Space & Tourism filled the role nicely (remember how he was in Bali) ... except as he noted, politicians don't like to be seen with dirty hands, so poor old Zalfian Fuzi had to do the actual spadework.

The art on display reflected the theme of Home, and there were installations in all kinds of spaces (even inside cupbaords!). Reza Rosli approriated the bathroom with his underwater theme - he made hanging lamps of fishtanks and had a jellyfish floating in the bathtub. (It was a nice spot to hang out, feet dangling in the water, and everyone who had come to use the utilities now had to hop off and find an alternative.) The bedroom had a story called Bed scrolling across the walls which you had to lie on the bed to watch.

I was so happy that my favourite local band Dewangga Sakti came along to play some songs. And there were an awful lot of nice people to chat to.

Interesting things will be happening in this space including art, performance, readings, meetings, and I'll be happy to keep you posted.

(For non-Malaysians : YB is Yang Berhormat which means The Honourable, and is a term of address for MP's.)

On Beauty and Other Saturday Stories

Big apologies for the delay in putting up the pictures of July Saturday's Readings@Seksan, a very enjoyable and well attended event with some great readers. (I could offer you miserable excuses, but won't.)


Jac SM Kee who describes herself as "a feminist activist, agitator, writer & researcher" in the newly published Malaysian Essays 2 read from her contribution to the book : Boundary Monsters in a Time of Magic - we all enjoyed the intelligence and humour of this very well-written piece. (You can watch her interview on The Fairly Current Show.)

Also talking about body image was Yvonne Lee who read for us from her book of essays about women's relationship to their looks - Vanity Drive. The book deals with such topics as relationship with luxurious lingerie, that first white hair, help my handbag looks like a warzone would you go with makeup - things we women can all relate to, written in a refreshingly honest and entertaining way.

Yvonne is also the author of The Sky is Crazy : Tales from a Trolley Dolly - a hilarious collection of pieces about life in the air - I found it laugh out loud funny and wished that I had had it at the time that I was teaching cabin crew for Malaysian Airlines.

Dipika Mukherjee's name may already to familiar to many of you. She was the editor of The Merlion and The Hibiscus, the collection of Malaysian and Singaporean short stories published by Penguin in 2002, and she also edited Silverfish New Writing 6. She had just heard that her novel has been longlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize, and so got a big cheer for that.

But today we encountered Dipika the (very widely published) poet reading from her beautifully produced chapbook The Palimpest of Exile which examines what it means to belong to many places, and the ways in which we find home.

And of course we had to have the delightful Shamini Flint back again since she lights up the room with her warmth and humour every time she reads. The last time she took part in readings she wasn't able to read from the first of her her Inspector Singh novels to be published by Little Brown . Today she was able to make up for that - and what fun it was to see Malaysia through the eyes of her bumbling protagonist. And for good measure she gave us another extract from her Young Adults novel Ten.


Ipoh-born Paul Gnanaselvam was one of the writers featured in MPH's Urban Odysseys and now teaches English at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman in Kampar, Perak. (I'm quite humbled that he made the journey all the way down for this event.) He read from his story Char Kuay Teow Satu, very nicely evocative about the way that the city has changed. I do hope we hear more from him.


And finally, we heard from a new writer, Amir Sharippudin, whose piece Blue, Black and White: How I Survived National Service appears in New Malaysian Essays 2 and gave us a very well observed insider's view of the whole thing.

Once again my thanks to all who read, to all who came (including from the UK my friends Rob and Elaine), to Seksan for his beautiful space and to the friends who helped set up and clear away.

Our next Readings will be in September after Hari Raya (because it would be no fun for those fasting during puasa, and I wouldn't want to hold it without them). We may also be holding it in a new venue, so watch this blog and the Facebook page for details.

Winners@Bookfest@Malaysia

BookFest@Malaysia 2009 organised by Popular Bookstore kicks off at the KL Convention Centre on August 22. Starmag today features a list of author events at the Reading Room.

And, of course, the winners of the Popular-Star Readers’ Choice Awards 2009 will be announced. Who will win? Starmag asks. Well, if you want to find out who Malaysian readers have chosen as the best fiction and non-fiction authors, be at BookFest@Malaysia’s main stage at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre at 2pm on Aug 26.

Authors - Guard Your Rights

... no author, or creator of any intellectual property deserves to be deprived of his or her copyright. Unfortunately, please be warned, there is a lot of this going on, and writers are being deprived not just of their royalty. A lot of it has to do with ignorance (since we are not all lawyers) and quite a bit to do with corporate greed and bullying.

Authors protect your copyright and know what your rights are! Some very sensible cautions for Malaysian authors on the Silverfish website.

The Sultan and the Mermaid Queen

Julia of MPH wrote to tell me that author Paul Spencer Sochaczewski will be coming to Malaysia but in this case it is the Sarawakians (usually much neglected as far as literary events are concerned) who are the ones to get lucky and the rest of us who must feel a bit left out! You can catch him at MPH Spring 3-4p.m., on 23rd August.

Sochaczewski's first novel novel Redheads is set in the middle of a Borneo rainforest. On this trip the former Sarawak resident will be launching The Sultan and the Mermaid Queen : Surprising Asian People, Places and Things that Go Bump in the Night. (Here's an interesting piece about the Sultan and the Mermaid that he wrote for The Herald Tribune some time ago, and some of his other articles.) He is also a creative writing coach, and I have to say I feel very sad that I don't have the chance to meet him this time.

The Thomas Pynchon Voice-Over

Thomas Pynchon is a noted literary recluse. Despite being the best-selling author of V and Gravity's Rainbow and achieving cult status for his writing, so little is know about him that he was once described by CNN as :

... an enigma shrouded in a mystery veiled in anonymity. ... you won't see Pynchon hawking his wares on Oprah's book club. You won't find him signing his name for fans down at the corner bookstore. ... He so shuns publicity that he doesn't allow his likeness to be used on book jackets. All known photographs of the man date to the early 1950s. Until Nancy Jo Sales of New York Magazine tracked him down last year, no reporter had interviewed him in four decades.

He did, it's true appear in an episode of The Simpsons (and don't you love the paper bag!) :



and he did (remember?) step forward to defend Ian McEwan against that plagiarism charge.

Now, in his closest brush with public life for decades, Pynchon reads in the trailer for his new book Inherent Vice [via Reading Copy]. Enjoy! :



In these days when authors are expected to have a high public profile to publicise their work, I think it's really nice to read about a writer who is able to keep his mystique and let his work talk for him.

Gaiman wins Hugo

Neil Gaiman has won a Hugo Award for The Graveyard Book it was announced at the fantasy convention Worldcon in Montreal on Sunday night. The novel has already won or been nominated for several other major awards. Patrick Ness heaps praise on the book here ... and yes, I think I have to read it.

More on the Hugos here.

The Library Books That Time Forgot

Sometimes libraries need a bit of friendly persuasion to let go of some of the outdated books on their shelves, the ones nobody borrows any more - if indeed they did in the first place.

The Guardian links a blog set up by two public spirited librarians from Detroit which provides plentiful examples of the worst books on library shelves, to encourage librarians to cull their shelves. Awful Library Books has become an unexpected hit, turning some very quirky titles, any of which reflect the way that attitudes, as a well as technology has changed.

And I'm sure Malaysian libraries can provide some equally odd titles! Let us know if you find any.

Over to You?

Must admit - am feeling a little tired and uninspired at the moment, and am busy with teaching practice observation which has me dashing off to schools all over the city. Time I think to throw things over to you guys - what are you reading and what do you think of it?

I've been in a very nibblish mood lately, reading bits and pieces of things but finding it hard to settle to a whole book. I've been mighty impressed by J.D. Salinger's short stories (my copy is one of Dina Zaman's pre-loved books) . Am also reading - among other stuff - Adeline Lee's short stories and Malaysian Essays 2, and about to embark on Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. I'm also enjoying a compilation of the short short stories that won the Writers Digest competition last year - my own entry not among them (but now am beginning to understand what they were looking for).

The wonderful bookstairs above were found by Tan Twan Eng At Guagga Art and Books in Cape Town. (The bookstore's site appears to be down at the moment.)

Space and Sound Reading

Forwarded to me by Prof. Dr. Ghukam-Sarwar Yousof via Datuk Shan :

In conjunction with 3rd Group Show by Satu: Collective Visual Art Group and in collaboration with The Asian Cultural Heritage Centre Berhad and supported by Soka Gakkai Malaysia

SPACE AND SOUND:MULTI-LINGUAL POETRY READING

A Programme of Poetry from diverse Cultures and in different Languages from various parts of the world.

Date: August 15 2009 (Saturday)
Time: 10:00 am to 12:30 pm.
Location: Wisma Kebudayaan SGM, 243, Jln Bkt. Bintang,55100 Kuala Lumpur .

This programme will be facilitate and presented by Prof Dato' Dr Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof , a well-known academician, expert on culture and poet. He will present his own poems as well as the work of other foreign poets in several languages. It is expected that several other local poets will either present their own work, or have it read by representatives.

The programme is open to all persons interested to either read selections of poetry or to just listen to and appreciate the power of the Word. Due to limited time, it is expected that each reader will be given no more than five minutes on the average for perhaps two or three poems with brief explanations of the gist or translations.

Those interested in actually reading are requested to send their names to the following persons by email, if possible with copies of the poems to be read attached.

For further information do contact us:

Dr. Ghulam Tel: 012-4740786 email: gsyousof@gmail.com
Satu email: senisatu@gmail.com Facebook: Satu Gerak
SGM ( Ms. Joanne Foo & Ms. Vicky Ho Pei Ying) Tel: (603) 90756876 email: sgmpro@sgm.org.my

Where possible readers are encouraged to present their own work, or, if this is not available, some of the best in the languages they are able to handle.

Light refreshments will be served.

Why Older Writers Aren't Necessarily Better ...

Yes, writing is a lifetime’s vocation. Which is why a 45-year-old writer is no more “superior” to a 25-year-old, than 45 years of life are “superior” to 25. The common mistake is to assume that at the later age you have all that you did at the earlier, plus 20 years experience. The truth is, people forget. At 20 it seems scarcely conceivable that we were once six years old — a child is a stranger — and similarly, at 40 the young person is a stranger. His or her way of thinking and feeling is irretrievably lost — it shows in the clash of the generations, and it shows in the writing. “Experience” is not a commodity that keeps increasing quantitatively; it only keeps changing qualitatively; and so, incredible though it may seem, the 25-year-old writer possesses as many passionately felt thoughts, and as many means of expressing them, as he or she ever will. Looked at another way, it is worth noting that there comes an age beyond which one word fits all: the word is “adult”, and if you are not one by 25, you probably won’t be one by 75.

Aditya Sudarshan in The Hindu has some interesting things to say about age and the fiction writer - a topic which we've visited on this blog before ...

The Merdeka Miracle

Three Malaysian writers, Robert Raymer, Tunku Halim and Lydia Teh have collaborated on a short story for the Malaysia Airlines in-flight magazine Going Places. The Merdeka Miracle was written to celebrate Malaysia's Independence Day and each writer took it in turns to contribute their paragraphs.

Shirley Ng of MPH was kind enough to send me scans of the pages which you can click up to size: