So You Think You Can Write?

With shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance? becoming such big cultural phenomena, it only makes sense to adapt their formats to other art forms that could use similar constructive ... criticism.

Sharmilla Ganesan in Starmag today writes about the So You Can Think You Can Write? event organised by The British Council.  Ten stories were chosen, my own among them, and performed by members of Instant Cafe Theatre at the PJ Live Arts Centre.

It was an excellent idea - I found it fascinating to hear how an actress (in this case Joanne Bessey) read my work, and the comments afterward from the panel of judges (author Ardashir Vakil, playwright Ben Payne,   British Council Malaysia education and programmes director Peter Clack, and ZI Publications publisher Ezra Mohd Zaid) were encouraging. So ... the setting needs work but I had "great control" and there was pleasing symmetry. I was happy with that, and know what to work on.

(I did record my story for those of you who asked me to ... but apologise for the poor quality.)


We didn't know which story had been written by whom, and we voted for the one we liked best.  :

Writes Sharmilla :

What was impressive about the stories presented was the sheer diversity of themes and ideas – and yet, they retained a uniquely Malaysian identity.

Some revolved around simple, everyday experiences that told a much deeper story. For example, It’s Alright, Auntie explored, through a child’s eyes, his parents’ hollow marriage, while Martha Falling is filled with vivid imagery centred on a woman dealing with the loss of her unborn child.

Others looked at the greyer areas of life, such as Intermission, which speaks honestly about a woman’s broken marriage and her subsequent attraction to a much younger man. There were others that took on darker, even spooky, undertones, such as A String of Pearls and A Walk in the Dark.

Ezra found this very encouraging. “What’s amazing is how these writers presented such a huge variety of stories and viewpoints. Each reading had something different from the one before!” he said.

Datuk Dr M. Shanmughalingam won for most popular story for his Rani Taxis Away :

... a simple but touching tale of an Indian girl in post-Independence Malaysia who finds her own freedom in small ways.

and will receive a Professional Development Planning Programme mentored by Spread the Word which will help him devise a route forward in creative writing. I'm very pleased for Shan and I hope that this award encourages him to - finally - get a book out.

It was unfortunate that the timing went awry and most of the audience had drifted away before the end, but I hope that we do have more events of this kind.  Many thanks to the British Council and to Instant Cafe for putting this together.

An Uncle’s Legacy

What did I learn from Uncle Shah? ... To be proud of being a writer because when it is done well, it touches the lives of others. To be fearless when stepping into unfamiliar territory because you never know what you will find. To be stubborn and stand up for what you believe in because, at the end of the day, that’s what really matters.

Dzof Azmi pays tribute to his uncle, Shahriza Hussein, in Starmag today with a very moving piece.

I was never sure how much of the story in Legacy was fact, and how much fiction. Shahriza actually denied that it was his own family history being retold, when I asked him about it. But  Dzof says :

Legacy is based on what he had learned about our family, passed on through the generations. My grandfather (Uncle Shah’s father) had once told me that if it wasn’t for his grandfather being cheated of some inheritance, we would still be part of a royal lineage. The novel goes some way in explaining what could have happened.

I like the way that Shah asked Dzoh to write the screenplay. The novel would translate wonderfully to the big screen, so I do hope he takes up the challenge.

Our Local Oprah Announces a Book Club!

Umapagan Ampikaipakan talks about detective fiction on his BFM89.9 and talks about Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh series, Qio Xiaolong's Inspector Chen novels, Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy. All the books are available from MPH and will be in the shops with special stickers on them.

Uma also announces  a new book club - you have a month to read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and I am going to be one of the guests discussing it with Uma.  Now to re-re-read it!

More of Uma's shows are archived here if you want to play catch up, and they are full of great recommendations if you are not sure what to read. (And I must say that I am really happy about the way BFM keep their programmes accessible in this way so that those of us who forget to tune in at the right time can enjoy the talks later.)

January Readings

“Readings” is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Please help us celebrate!

Date: Saturday 30th January, 2010
Time: 3.30pm
Place: Seksan's, 67, Jalan Tempinis Satu, Lucky Garden, Bangsar (Map)

The readers for this month are:

Bernice Chauly
O Thiam Chin
Kam Raslan
Jo Kukathas
Rahmat Harun
Elaine Foster

Admission free and everyone very welcome. Please pass on the invitation to anyone else you think might be interested.

(For enquiries contact Sharon 017-2644956, sharonbakar@yahoo.com)

(Poster designed by ... Me! Okay for a first attempt?)

Ebook Readers Arrive in Malaysia - Finally!

Last Sunday's Starmag carried the news that MPH will be bringing in stocks of an e-reader - at last! The device in question is called Hanlin, and is produced by China-based Tianjin Jinke Electronics.  (Pictured on the left in the hands of MPH's Rodney Toh.)

It will most probably be followed by models from companies such as Samsung, Toshiba and Asus (and Sony? A rather odd omission from the list.).

Hanlin was chosen, apparently :

... because of its flexibility: it can read a wide range of files, including the new eBook industry standard, Adobe ePub, as well as PDF and text files. ... This means it can download eBooks from different online stores, not just MPH’s.

(This is important to me, since much of what I need to read are unpublished manuscripts which are expensive and time consuming to print off, and impossible to read comfortably on present computer screens.)

MPH plans to sell 200,000 eBooks of current titles in the first half of this year through its online bookstore mphonline.com

One particularly interesting point made in the article is that mphonline is in a great position to promote Malaysian literature overseas. Donald Kee says :

There are a lot of Asian authors that are underrepresented, such as Malaysian, Singapore and Thai authors ... we want to become a platform to showcase these writers to rest of the world.

The device is reviewed in next Sunday's edition, so we'll see how it measures up.

But, one wonders, is it already too late for the eBook reader?  The newly unveiled Apple iPad looks impressive and can do so much more ...

Kam Does Radio

Author Kam Raslan is interviewed on BFM89.9 and shares some of his favourite music with us.  Totally agree with him on the choice of Joni Mitchell track - one of my favourites too.

Banning Books is Like Banning Thoughts

We urge other authors and publishers of banned book to write to the home ministry to ask for reasons on why their books have been banned.

Without communicating to the author or the publisher on any detailed explanation for its action, it will only make one wonder whether the authorities may have something to hide or that they are submitting themselves to unfathomable prejudices or that they have simply not yet read the book.

The joy of reading is a fundamental human right and we hope to get this message across. Books are important keystone for information and expression.

Books can feed the mind, nourish the soul, and promote positive change in individuals and society. Banning books is like banning thoughts – senseless and not to mention, dangerous.

Dr Hamidah Marican, executive director of Sisters in Islam, in Malaysiakini, following their victory in court.

And JAKIM has told Muslims to "stay away" from the book, Bernama reports, a position that makes me very angry indeed - for heaven's sake, let readers make up their own mind!

Wong Chin Huat at The Nut Graph writes an excellent piece on censorship and calls on Malaysians to become conscientious objectors in the face of book banning.

... what would have happened if the High Court upheld the Home Ministry's ban? ...
It could pose a call for Malaysians to be conscientious objectors. Imagine this: 30 persons reading a copy of the banned book — this could be easily done if someone scanned it into PDF format and others downloaded and printed it — in front of a bookshop in one of Klang Valley's major shopping malls.

Maybe next time, then?

Singapore's Fiction Famine

One of the great conundrums of local writing - how come Singapore produces so many excellent poets but comparatively few writers of fiction? And why does that situation seem to be reversed in Malaysia? Of course it is something of an oversimplification, but on Eric Forbes' blog, poet Ng Yi-Sheng suggests some reasons :

... the easy answer is that poems take less time to write. Singapore’s a busy country. Most of us have day jobs; those of us still in school often have night tuition. It’s hard to carve out a chunk of time to write the Great Singapore Novel, or even a full-length play. It’s much easier to scribble out a poem on the bus in between stations, or while waiting for our systems to defrag.

Another answer is that communities of poets have developed. The seminal moment for this was the Singapore Literature Prize in 1995, which allowed unpublished poetry manuscripts. The official victor was Roger Jenkins’s From the Belly of the Carp, which has faded into literary obscurity, but the runners-up were a band of 20- and 30-somethings, eager and determined to develop Singapore literature anew.

The Class of ’95, as they call themselves, were Alvin Pang, Aaron Lee, Boey Kim Cheng, Yong Shu Hoong and Heng Siok Tian. They organised readings, lobbied bookshops to stock their works, travelled overseas for literary festivals and put together grand, ambitious anthologies (e.g. No Other City, a collection of urban poetry where names of poets were relegated to the index, so that laureates and neophytes rubbed shoulders to form a polyphonic national epic).

I was lucky enough to be present in those early years: an awkward, closeted schoolboy, chanting my free verse at Chijmes, the old National Library, Borders and the old MPH bookshop. What was really great was that these guys were approachable and inclusive, paying for our dinners at mid-priced Indonesian restaurants while they discussed politics and culture, bringing us along on overnight train rides as part of poetry delegations to Kuala Lumpur. Without their encouragement, I might never have dared to print my verse.

And today, it’s the same story. The Class of ’95 and the poets who followed them continue to be the crusaders of homegrown lit. There’s Cyril Wong and Toh Hsien Min, who run online literary journals Softblow and Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore respectively. There’s Chris Mooney-Singh, who hosts poetry slams and coaches students in performance poetry. There’s Enoch Ng, a Chinese-language poet, who cranks out award-winning volumes of verse in Mandarin and English from his one-man publishing house, Firstfruits.

Poetry in Singapore is alive and well, not just because of our preference for bite-sized creations, but because poets are working hard to make themselves heard. Thus, we’ve got communities, not only of writers, but also of readers, willing to support us as well as the newer poets who emerge year after year.

He makes the point though that the media in Singapore largely ignore the poets (but were very keen to pick up on short story writers Wena Poon and O Thiam Chin after the Singapore Literary Festival).

But, he says, he can't think of :

... a single other Singaporean fiction writer who’s emerged and published in the 2000s ... it's a fiction famine ...

He reckons though that there is hope for the future :

The literary agency Jacaranda Press is actively seeking out Singapore fiction for a global market. There’s a new grant from the National Arts Council called the Arts Creation Fund, supplying enough cash for people to actually to take a long-term break from their jobs and churn out a humongous tome. November has even been declared a NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, an exercise wherein participants are committed to churning out 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days. ... Not surprisingly, the Class of ’95 has also leapt to the rescue. Poet Alvin Pang has teamed up with The British Council in Singapore to set up a week-long writers’ retreat on the island of Pulau Ubin, with novelist coaches from the UK’s Arvon Foundation to goad us into writing fiction. I attended the retreat myself in October 2009, one of 12 participants gathering in pondoks with laptops and notepaper, five of whom were fellow poets. I’ve borne witness to the workshops, and I can assure that there’s some great prose bundled up in some of us, waiting for a moment to break free.

(This piece will be appearing in the next edition of MPH's Quill magazine.)

Meet David T.K. Wong at CHAI

A few months ago I got a surprise email from someone I had been curious about for years - David T.K.Wong.  His name may well be familiar to you because of the literary prize he sponsors, which has launched some very successful authors' careers (and here I am particularly thinking of Nam Le and Rattawat Lapcharonsaep, both short story writers I have enjoyed very much indeed).

Or maybe because you have come across his for collections of short fiction (the latest of which is Chinese Stories in Times of Change, and in all the bookshops).  David is currently living in Kuala Lumpur and working on a second novel, and I've had the pleasure of meeting up with him a couple of times for lunch.

He was very happy to take part in an author event, so that he can share his insights and experience of writing and getting published, and I am so pleased that Jo Kukathas was supportive of the idea and offered us use of CHAI.  All the details are below, and please can you pass the information on to anyone who would be interested.  There is a Facebook group for CHAI if you would like to indicate you are are coming for the event  :

Meet the Author - David T.K. Wong

Venue : Instant CAFE's HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]

Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Instant CAFE's HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI] and READINGS is pleased to present a talk by author David T. K. Wong who will address the question 'Why bother to write fiction?' He will also be happy to answer questions from the audience about his work and about writing in general.

David Wong is also the founder of the annual David T. K. Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. The Fellowship awards £26,000 to each successful candidate writing a work of fiction set in the Far East in the English language.

David Wong's latest collection of short stories, entitled Chinese Stories in Times of Change, has just been simultaneously published by Muse in England and by Marshall Cavendish in Singapore. The Singapore edition is available locally at MPH, Borders and Kino bookstores.

Copies will be available at the event, and you will be able to get them signed. Other stories by David can be downloaded for personal enjoyment free of charge at his website where you can also find more information about the author and his books.

Entrance by donation: RM20

Ban Lifted on Sisters in Islam Book

I am extremely happy to hear of Sisters-in-Islam's victory in the High Court yesterday. The Home Minister’s order banning the book Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism was overturned by Justice Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof who ruled that the book did not disturb public order, as the ministry had claimed.

He said :

Some may not agree with what is stated in the book but this is to be expected in an academic text, which this book is. But to conclude that it can create public disorder is something that cannot stand to objective scrutiny. ... I therefore find an error of law evident in the decision of the minister on the combined terms of illegality and irrationality. It can be said that the reaction (to ban the book) is wholly disproportionate to the concerns expressed.

He also awarded SIS costs.

Norani Othman of SIS said to reporters after wards that it was “a good day” for academic freedom and freedom of speech, and that :

The book has not caused public disorder. It is a serious book that discusses and analyses certain aspects of the implementation of Islamic family law and syariah criminal law... in so far as it affects the rights of Muslim women. ... We are not questioning the syariah law, akidah or rejecting Islam.

It's been a two year fight to get the book unbanned, and it is a very important victory which offers hope to others whose works have suffered in a similarly arbitrary way.

And really this is yet another instance of the Malaysian government having been made to look stupid and narrow-minded in the international arena, with the story being picked up around the world. Please don't shame us further!

Shahriza Hussein Passes Away

I just received the sad news from his daughter, Narissa, that Legacy author Shahriza Hussein passed away on the 23rd January following a fall. He was admitted into ICU under sedation and then passed away two days later. Narissa says that the ultimate cause of his death was attributed to heart failure, and he passed away peacefully.

Shahriza had been unwell for some time, and those of you who came to Readings@Seksan in June 2008 will remember how frail he was then and how his friend, Yew Lie, read for him.  (Mind you, he was chain smoking in the background.)

My love and condolence goes to his family. I had not known him or his wife Sermsuk long, but they became immediate friends when I went to the house to collect a copy of his novel. I liked his slight curmudgeonliness (which reminded me of my own grouchy, but funny, other half), his keen intelligence, and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

Legacy remains HIS legacy, and it is a local novel well worth reading.

The plot is set in motion by the killing of Birch, and his pocket watch falling into the hands of Mastura, a member of the Perak royal family, who vows to return it to the rightful owners. It follows Mastura and her descendants through 80 tumultuous years of Malaysian history, culminating in Independence. 

One of the great pleasures of the book is the way it brings alive real historical characters and pivotal scenes from Malaysia's past - here's Birch marooned on a sandbank in the Perak River,  here's Swettenham at Carcosa, here's a meeting about the drainage problems of Kampong Baru.  The novel is meticulously researched and he quite effortlessly opens a door and lets you slip back in time. I learned such a lot and am deeply grateful. 

But it is no stuffy historical tome, and there is plenty of dramatic incident to keep the plot rolling nicely. There's also a very pleasing old school correctness about the prose - the author cared deeply about his craft and for the English language.  (Incidentally,  was also an educationalist and wrote the 322 Communicative English language syllabus that was used in all secondary schools.)

If there is a problem with the book it is that the plot is rather tugged along, because of the authors desire to cover all significant historical events. My own feeling is that it really should have been published as two books and more time and space given to fleshing out the characters. "Pare back, and deepen" is what I would have said to Shahriza if I'd been sitting on the other side of the editor's desk. Sometimes too the book doesn't wear its historical didacticism very well - there are substantial chunks of background at the beginnings of each chapter which are a bit indigestible.

But I do think that this is one of the most important locally written books of the past few years, and I hope that in the long term it wins the recognition that it deserves.

You can find an extract here and Amir Muhammad wrote an excellent review of the novel.

I still have some copies of the book to sell, the money goes to Sermsuk, and I will bring them to readings on 30th January.

Call for Writing that Sizzles

Here's an interesting call for writing that will have you exercising your naughty muscles :

Call For Submissions


“The Best of Southeast Asian Erotica” volume is the follow-up volume to the highly successful “The Best of Singapore Erotica” published by Monsoon Books (Singapore) in 2006.


For the new anthology, we are looking for stories of 2,000 to 5,000 words that address the themes of sex or sensuality. Unlike the first book, this second volume will be looking for stories based in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines as well as Singapore.


The editor and publisher stress the fact that this is erotica, not pornography. The stories must be well-written, original pieces that look at sex and sensuality. (The first volume even had a few stories in which there was no actual sex presented, but only longing and fantasy.)


And to answer a question that we heard while compiling the first erotica volume: Yes, the characters involved can actually be married to each other. Sounds a little perverse, of course, but we believe that even married couples can engage in engaging erotica.


Payment will be set according to royalties, divided between all the writers in the anthology.


All submissions and inquiries should be sent to eroscope2@gmail.com. Deadline for submissions is April 10, 2010.

What We Did in Our Second Workshop

The second week of the British Council's City of Stories workshops was lead by author Ardashir Vakil, whose first novel Beach Boy won a Betty Trask Award in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Whitbread (now Costa).  His second novel One Day was shortlisted for the Encore Award. (Sadly, neither novel was available in the local bookshops.) Ardu teaches creative writing at Goldsmith's College, London.

We were worked pretty hard throughout, with plenty more tasks and readings to keep us busy in between.

We did more exercises to develop character : we took a character from our fiction and described them ravenous with hunger for a particualr food, and then wrote about the last time they had eaten it; we placed our character in a room and described it ,and then wrote about a place where they would like to be; we described their favourite object. We wrote about who we were (Me? A brit dispalced ... a neither here nor there person ... too big, too loud too messy.)

We put stories under the microscope to see how they worked : The Kiss by Chekhov, in which a man's life is changed by a single kiss a mistake in the darkness and Jumpha Lahiri's Sexy (from The Interpreter of Maladies).  We saw how economically character can be brought to life in one or two telling details, and at how so much meaning can be carried in just a few words. ("Less is More" was one of the mantras of the workshops.)

And we looked at a much more complex and skillfully handled story, Five Points by Alice Munro, we looked at shifts of time and how transitions were made. (And now I realise what a bad reader of Munro's work I have been.  You can't hurry them, need to read and reread, and tease them out.)

We spent all day Saturday workshopping pieces of our own writing. It was done kindly and everyone I think took something very useful away from from the experience.

And one of the most fun things we did on Sunday was to go down to Petaling Street, to watch the crowds and record the things our senses took in.

(We sat down to write wherever we could ... and of course a nice beer helped!)

We had to make notes on one particular character who we could use later for our fiction.  (I met this fascinating guy called Jack who was selling bamboo whistles from his motorcyle tricycle.)

We came back to the British Council to share pieces of writing that had inspired us and pieces of writing from our notebooks which we had written over the previous few days.

I'm sad that the whole thing is over - I've come away from the experience feeling re-enthused and validated, and I feel I know how to move forward with the pieces I shared.

My greatest wish is that we could have more workshops of this kind so that more local writers can benefit. My greatest thanks to Ardu and Sarah and to the British Council for providing us with this opportunity - I feel mighty privileged to have been part of it.

Postscript :

Do read Damyanti's excellent take on the two workshops too. She fills in the gaps and says all the things I forgot to say.

Up Penang Hill with Twan Eng

Whenever Hayato Endo, the Japanese aikido master and consular officer at the center of Tan Twan Eng's WW II–era novel The Gift of Rain, needs cardio (and a break from the stresses of international espionage), he hikes up Penang Hill. He forgoes the funicular because he wants "to feel the climb." Follow his three-hour tropical trudge from the Penang Botanic Gardens past British colonial mansions to the 2,723-ft. (833 m) summit, and every aching muscle in you will feel it too. The reward is a breathtaking view of Georgetown and the piratical Strait of Malacca. At the outdoor coffee shack 30 minutes below the peak, ask resting Chinese or Tamil retirees how often they make the climb. Should caffeine fail to boost you to the top, their answer will be the kick in the butt you've needed.


Tim Kindseth on 25 (More) Authentic Asian Experiences in Time.  The Gift of Rain is a great book for putting Penang (and hence Malaysia) on the map.

Twan Eng is interviewed on Eric's blog.  The author describes himself at the moment as :

... irritable, anxious, distracted, exhausted and tense ...

because he is trying to finish the first draft of his second novel. But he still finds time to talk at great length about the books he loves, and why reading is important. There are some great book recommendations here.

The novel has now been translated into many different language, but how often do we think about the translators or the stories about the translations? Here's a fascinating insight into how The Gift of Rain  into  came to be translated into Romanian. Translator Madalina Serban calls the novel :

... a story that transcends cultures and it relates to a very special part of my life.

Read Great Lit to Save your Souls

Malaysian youths must be exposed to more local literature that highlight noble values like respect and responsibility ... Reading high-quality literature needs to be encouraged because it is the best way to inculcate the culture of knowledge and instill positive values in our youths.

said Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (who is also the deputy PM) at the presentation of the Hadiah Sastera Perdana Malaysia (Malaysia Premier Literary Award), The Star reports today. (There's a much fuller account of what he actually said on the Bernama website which actually reads much better.)

It is great to see such support of literature, but I'd remind the minister that we read for pleasure, the rest follows : along the way, it might actually make us better people, but it "being good for us" is never the reason why we pick up a book.  

But I do agree with him that it would be great to see local literature make the transition to other media, but please make translation into English a priority!!

And it's good that there is a RM200mil Creative Industry Fund, but it would be nice to see some of the money spent on what writers actually need in this country - courses, workshops, resources,  grants and bursaries. 

And not just for Malay language writers - those writing in English are doing so much to put the country on the map internationally, and there are Chinese and Tamil writers to consider too.

But anyhow you can't just throw money at something and expect it to happen.  Those that are making a mark internationally are, in every case,  those who have had the gumption to do something for themselves and the willingness to make big sacrifices.

It is indeed sad that the Award has now dropped its English language category, and I feel *big sigh* there is something symbolic in that too. it also strikes me as really odd that the awards were for books published several years ago - this gives the impression of some not-being-on-the-ballness which might give the prize an image problem.

Anyway, all this minister speak has overshadowed the actual results so here are the prize winners :

Among the works that received the award were a children’s novel, Azrul Wira Anak Laut (by Hassan Omar), a novel for adolescents Me­­nikam Kalbu (Faisal Tehrani), an anthology of poems entitled Salju Shibuya (Muhammad Salleh) and anthology of short stories entitled Mekar Sakura di Mimbar Cinta (Ilham Hamdani) .... Arena Wati was given the HSPM 2004-2005 posthumously for his book Armageddon Jilid 1: Mandala.

Biggest congrats on your success!

Sarah's City of Stories Workshops

Sorry for not blogging for a few days. Was very caught up in the British Council's City of Stories creative writing workshops, which have been very intensive. For this first week we had Sarah Butler of Urbanwords (left) who ran workshops for us last year too. 

I know those of you who weren't in the workshops are dying to know what went on, so here is a potted version :

We read and discussed three short stories : The Lady with the Dog by Chekhov (a classic, this, and one of the best love stories I've read), The Numbers by Clare Wigfall (my favourite of the three, and you can download it from here), and Popular Mechanics by Raymond Carver (a very powerful short short). How did each of the writers achieve their effects and what could we take away from the stories with us?

We thought about plot and how it differs from story, and we drew a diagram of  the plot in our own short stories.

We looked at the decisions you have to make when you write a short story : Whose story is it?  Who is telling it? What tense do you want to use?  What mood/tone/atmosphere do you want to create?  What is the timescale? What is the change that happens in your story?

We looked at how those decisions applied to a short story we are writing, and we wrote two alternative beginnings to the story to see which one worked best.

We looked at how we build characters. We too one of the characters for a story we are currently working on and filled in a table which asked questions like - What is their favourite item of clothing and why? What's their favourite food? What's their relationship with their parents like? What are their obsessions? What do they usually have in their pockets and handbags? In what ways are they like you?

We drew round out hands and then made notes about our characters hands, and then did the same with our feet and their feet. (And were amazed at what extra detail this threw up.)

The we put our characters in a situation they would never normally be placed in, and looked at what happened to them. (My rather dowdy, self-sacrificing Malay lady got a makeover in a department store and rather enjoyed the experience!).  the we had them lose an item that was of great significance to them.  (The poor woman lost her wedding ring, and wasn't too happy with me.)

We focused on dialogue, and looked at how it has to always further the plot and express character, but how it can also do other things such as set the mood, increase readability. We analysed a brilliant scene of dinner party dialogue from Larry's Party by Carol Shields.

We worked on mood and atmosphere, considered how we create a sense of place, and had one of our characters revisit a place they had known as a child. (My Rosmah went back to the kampong.)

We considered what we look for when we edit our stories, and then looked at a sample of writing, and then at our work with a checklist in hand.

And then we heard extracts from everyone's stories and offered feedback. This was an incredibly useful process, and we learned from hearing everyone talking about the other extracts, as well as from the feedback on our own. On my part, I know where a story I'd abandoned to the desk drawer went wrong and where it needs to be fixed.

And in between all these things we did lots of short writing exercises to get us warmed up and focused.

This week our workshops continue with Ardashir Vakil, and I'm greatly looking forward to that, although getting psyched up for some intensive brainwork!

Jasmine's Struggle

A young lady called Jasmine Yow wrote to me the other day to tell me about her new book Behind That Shiny Resume, which tells of her struggle with depressive illness, and I invited her to write a post for this blog. I know that you are all going to want to wish her well when you read this :

Behind the writing process of That Shiny Resume

When Sharon kindly offered me a space on her blog to share about my recently published book, Behind That Shiny Resume, I realized that I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about. I hate doing the “I was a top student” background introduction, I feel uncomfortable “promoting” myself as someone who has survived cyclothymic depression, and yet I wanted to let you know that this book was written from my heart, to comfort and encourage students with similar struggles in school.

From the Facebook notes and interviews that I’ve written and done, I gathered that what people would appreciate most would be a 20 year old’s thoughts on how she pieced together a book on a deeply personal and painful experience during two difficult years of her life.

There were many things I considered while writing the book, an effort I undertook in secret for a long time before I dared to tell anyone:

Firstly, my parents (whom I used to blame for causing me so much stress). Now I really, really believe in honouring them—but I also believe in being real! So I constantly had to ask myself: do the readers need to know this? If not, it's out. I had my aunt and both my parents read it to ensure I painted a fair picture of things...although there were suggestions I didn't heed. Haha.

Secondly, my, erm, condition. Bipolar. I just wanted to write enough for people to get a glimpse. I didn't want it to be in the spotlight, and I didn’t understand it all that well either. My observation is that parents in their sometimes overbearing love, panic and conclude that there's something wrong with their child so easily. I did not want my book to contribute to that! But many people also needed to know that it's OK to have depression or mental illness, and it's perfectly OK to seek professional help. If your child is like that, the worst thing you could ever do is to be ashamed.

Thirdly, trying to fit everything into a book my publisher said "can be read in one sitting". How do you choose from all your memories that seem equally important? In the end, I realized it's an art that needs so much thought, time and practice to develop.

Fourthly, my life! I can imagine how utterly foolish I would look if one day in the near future, I collapse into burnout again: if I lose control, lose heart, lose purpose. What would my readers say! At that moment (which I am determined not to see), it would take me double, triple the courage to stand up again. But writing the book at this stage sends an important message--I don't know if people get it: it means that it's perfectly OK not to know everything, it's OK to be uncertain and a little lost because we're all on our journeys of discovery. I don't have to "make it" or have a success story before I can be secure: I can find that in God’s love. : )

Lastly, I had to consider how many real names I wanted to expose. What a headache! Which alma mater should I include? Which school, which individuals would not want me to print their names? One of my roommates gladly said yes, another preferred a pseudonym. I changed every single name to a fake, and then reverted a few to their real ones. The process went on till I decided every real name I put down was justifiable.

The book has now gone into its third printing and is available in major bookstores in Malaysia and Singapore. I have learnt so much from the publishing process, and every time a reader writes back to thank me for writing the book, I tell myself that yes, I made a good decision venturing out into the unknown world of publishing. Yes, it was worth the effort. I hope you will smile, cry, gain insight, encourage yourself, and be blessed because of my story.

Zhang Su Li's Writing Workshops

I want to let you know about some more writing workshops, this time those run by Zhang Su Li, the author of A Backpack and a Bit of Luck.

Su Li is running classes in Flash Fiction (for both adults and children), Travel Writing, and Copywriting.

Full details and dates can be found here.

Recycled Fiction

All writers repeat themselves. And when we read a favourite author, repetition is in a sense exactly what we want. Kafka wouldn't be Kafka without the terrifying entrapment and metaphysical despair; Irvine Welsh wouldn't be Irvine Welsh without the junkies. As for plot, we keep being told that only four exist anyway (or seven or 36 or one million, depending what you read). Some writers try to focus on a completely different subject every time. ... You never quite know what you're going to get when you pick up the new TC Boyle or Toby Litt or Ian McEwan. Explorers or stoners? Outer space or gothic horror? Brain surgery or global warming? But these authors still leave their signatures, stylistically, thematically, ethically. You could say that one sign of a good writer is that he or she is distinctive (and repetitious) enough to be mimicked. Others, of course, prefer to stick to similar themes or genres: eighteenth-century prostitutes, medieval elves, irate London cabbies. Whatever.

But, asks Toby Lichtig in The Guardian, what about authors who seem to recycle their material. he seems particularly irked by John Irving (agree and gave up reading him some after the huge disappointment of A Widow for a Year), and with some justification, I think, Haruki Murakami and Paul Auster :

... when a modern writer goes in for casual recycling I think we're right to feel cheated.

Have you had the feeling that you were reading recycled material recently?

New Stuff from Asiatic

The new issue of Asiatic published by the IIUM English Department is out and includes articles about local literature, book reviews, new poetry fiction and even a short play by Kee Thuan Chye!

Don't forget, this is a good place to send your own work too!

Book Corners for Bus Stations

Some good news from The Star this morning :

The National Library of Malaysia is planning to expand its 1Malaysia Reading Campaign by soon setting up reading corners at selected bus stations.

Its director-general, Datuk Raslin Abu Bakar, said they were in the midst of discussing the idea with the management of the selected bus stations in the Klang Valley and identifying suitable locations for the reading corners.

"The idea to set up reading corners at bus stations came up after our reading corner in Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) Intercity trains, launched on Dec 7, received overwhelming response from passengers."

Doin' it For Yourself!

Self-published literature is nothing new. It’s been around, in one form or another, since the printing presses got rolling. John Milton, Mark Twain, Beatrix Potter and Walt Whitman are just a few of the more celebrated self-publishers. What self-publishers may lack in professional experience, they can gain in creative control. In some cases writers have been able to make a fast buck without having to share their profits with publishers. ... In the late Twenties, DH Lawrence self-published Lady Chatterley’s Lover (its sexual content made it unpublishable in England by the usual channels). He paid to have it printed privately in Florence then sent hundreds of sales leaflets to the United States and Britain and made himself £1,000 within the year. More recently, initially self-published novels include James Redfield’s 1993 new-age adventure The Celestine Prophecy, which spent 165 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list; Jill Paton Walsh’s medieval fable Knowledge of Angels made the 1994 Booker Prize shortlist and G P Taylor’s children’s book Shadowmancer topped the bestseller lists for 15 weeks, seeing him dubbed “hotter than Potter”. Who’d have guessed – when the policeman-turned-Anglican vicar sold his Harley Davidson to pay for 2,000 copies to be printed back in 2002 – that today he’d have a publishing deal with Faber and be fending off questions about whether Michael Caine will star in the movie?

Helen Brown in The Telegraph investigates the rise of the self-publishing phenomenon, as it becomes easier to produce books outside traditional publishing houses.

She points out that Grosvenor House Publishing, one of the companies offering services to authors who wish to self-publish in the UK saw a 20 per cent increase in business last year, and quotes Jane Rowland, the editor of The Self Publishing Magazine who attributes the growth to :

... the well-documented shrinking of commercial book lists and budgets, coupled with a population that is more determined, and financially able, to pursue their publishing ambitions.

So if you want to be published, why not consider the self-publishing route?

But first, some cautionary advice which I hope you will take to heart from a group of writers in Perth, Western Australia : Yes, you do need an editor!

Daphne's Workshops

I told you the other day that I would put up something about Daphne Lee's workshops with Learning Works - here 'tis :

Creative Writing For Kids

Good writing begins with reading.

Successful writers all agree that reading avidly and widely is a vital key to writing well. This course, conducted by children’s literature columnist, writer and editor Daphne Lee, will immerse its participants in the stimulating world of literature through a wide range of fiction, poetry and plays.

Participants will:

• be encouraged to read more critically and analytically.

• learn to discover their authorial voice; how to develop interesting and convincing plots, create believeable characters and build atmosphere.

• be taught about the different narrative perspectives and how to choose the one that works best.

• be introduced to different genres and styles, as well as the use of imagery: metaphors, similes, personification etc

• work on one writing exercise per session, and at least one fully-supported major writing project a year.

New intake commences 6th March 2010

Classes are conducted every Saturday at

3.00-4.00 p.m. for 7-12 year olds

5.00-6.00pm for 13-17 year olds

Cost: RM130 per month

Registration: RM20

Deposit: One month

Venue: Learning Works, 74 Jln BU 11/6, Petaling Jaya

Call Daphne at 016-328 1513 or Eileen at 012-207 2845 or email mylearningworks AT gmail DOT com for more information or to reserve your space.
***

It’s Only Words?: Writing A Picture Book

The term “picture book” might give one the impression that the pictures are the most important part of such a piece of work, but words tell the story in a picture book as much as the pictures do.

So what makes good picture book text?

In this workshop, Daphne Lee explores and discusses the qualities of good picture book writing by drawing on reviews and criticism and by examining classic and contemporary picture book texts. Participants may email in one manuscript each to be evaluated during the workshop.

Suitable for aspiring children’s authors.

Date: 30 Jan 2010

Time: 10.00 a.m.-4.00 p.m. (1 hr break for lunch)

Venue: Learning Works @ 74, Jln BU 11/6, Petaling Jaya

Fee: RM199 per participant

Registration: RM20

Call Daphne at 016-328 1513 or Eileen at 012-207 2845 or email mylearningworks AT gmail DOT com for more information or to reserve your space.

****
Reading Picture Books With Children

By choosing to use picture books at home and in the classroom, parents, caregivers and teachers have the privilege and pleasure of introducing a thoroughly enjoyable and magical route to learning.

Picture books may be used in many ways and in every area of the curriculum, to meet a variety of goals and introduce a wide range of subjects and themes.

As caregivers and teachers, we are only limited in our use of these books by our imagination and the willingness of children to explore situations and worlds both familiar and new.

In this course, Daphne Lee will introduce participants to picture books, ways of turning children on to their magic, as well as how to avoid turning them off.

The course will include practical sessions on how to select books (picture books and others); how to read effectively both in one-on-one and group situations; how to link other activities to your chosen book; and how to conduct a literature circle for young children.

This workshop is suitable for early childhood educators, professional caregivers, volunteers, parents and just about anyone who wishes to share the magic of reading with children.

Date: 27 February 2010

Time: 2.30-5.30 p.m.

Venue: Learning Works @ 74, Jln BU 11/6, Petaling Jaya

Fee: RM150 per participant

Registration: RM20

Class size: 6-20 participants

Call Daphne at 016-328 1513 or Eileen at 012-207 2845 or email mylearningworks AT gmail DOT com for more information or to reserve your space.

****
So, You Want To Write A Children’s Book?

The Malaysian children’s publishing industry is still in its infancy and one of the things it lacks is authors who are passionate about writing children’s literature.

This course, conducted by Daphne Lee, will help aspiring writers of children’s books get started in their chosen field.

The course covers:

• an introduction to children’s literature, including types of books for children

• finding the right genre and subject to write about

• finding your own voice

• creating characters and plots that young readers will enjoy

• how to avoid dumbing down

• writing in vernacular English

• illustrations for children’s books

• what to do once you’ve written your story

This guide to writing and getting published in Malaysia is a six-session course. There will be six weekly two-hour sessions.

Session dates: 20 & 27 February; 6, 13, 20 & 27 March 2010

Time: 10.00 a.m.-12.00 noon

Venue: Learning Works @ 74, Jln BU 11/6, Petaling Jaya

Fee: RM380 per participant

Registration: RM20

Call Daphne at 016-328 1513 or Eileen at 012-207 2845 or email mylearningworks AT gmail DOT com for more information or to reserve your space.

Author Miscellany

Some links to recent articles on authors from The Guardian. :

The birds have something to tell us again, and the truths are not comfortable ones.

Margaret Atwood writes with passion about how birds have been potent symbols through the ages, but how we ignore their decline at out peril; and she throws some thought-provoking statistics our way. Atwood's latest novel, After the Flood, is of course an account of a future world where most wildlife has become extinct and the human race might well not make it either.

Super power! I was not aware that I had even an ordinary power!

Canadian author Joyce Carol Oates (right) answers a Q&A about her life in The Guardian. Oates best known for her short fiction has two novels out this week : A Fair Maiden and Little Bird Of Heaven.

Stephen King, the well-known rock-star (pictured here with Amy Tan!) makes an appearance on Shooter Jennings latest album.

Here's what happened – I had a nervous breakdown. I was on a book tour. My marriage went to shit. I fell in love with a woman in San Francisco. A leftwing woman named Joan. Red Goddess Joan. It went bad. Big time. Fucking. Bad. I got the fuck out of LA. Then I met a married, pregnant woman . . .

Crime writer James Ellroy (left) talks candidly to David Peace about the mess his life became and how that worked its way into his writing.

Authors pay tribute to celebrated writers (including JG Ballard, Sybille Bedford, Saul Bellow) who died in the "noughties".

And just for a bit of fun ... Reading Copy asks which pet does your favourite author most look like? (Joan Didion and a Squirrel Monkey? Jodi Picoult and a Poodle??)

Yes, Dr. M's Book Will Be Banned Here

Yes, it seems that there is a going to be a ban on the book Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times. The Malay Mail reports that the Home Ministry's Quran Publication Control and Text Division division :

... found the book by veteran Australian journalist Barry Wain to have content that was not only erroneous but also damaging to former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed.

The former PM says that he wanted the book to be released and said that he did not need any protection :

In his blog, Dr Mahathir welcomed the suggestion saying that the commission should not be confined to one prime minister alone but should also look into Tun Abdullah Badawi’s tenure as prime minister.

(Here's what he says on his blog about it.)

Surely it is better for everything to be out in the open, and allegations scrutinised and either refuted, or fully investigated? Banning the book is in no-one's best interests and simply demonstrates that the present government is unwilling to face up to issues that are undeniably in the public interest.

Another good review of the book by Din Merican can be found here.

Quill Online

Quill, published by MPH Bookstores now has a very good website up and running, featuring pieces from the magazine which is available in bookstores.

Robert Raymer (one of the judges) pours balm on the hurt feelings and wounded egos of those who did not make the shortlist to the MPH Short Story Competition in his piece Prove Them Wrong!; Tom Sykes describes A Haphazard Journey Through Java, and there is a very sensible piece (which I could have done with reading some years ago) about how to get your money back from the loved ones you've lent it to, without creating bad feeling.

And ... here's Chan Siew Fun's review of the first e-reader to become available locally (at last!) - the Hanlin V5 E-reader.

The magazine is off to a very good start - congrats to editor May Lee and the team.

Bookish Relationships

I suppose, reading literature offers a couple a shared passion: something that connects them, even when they have differing opinions about the same author or book, and offers them a chance to compare and widen their learning. Reading literature can also give humans a stronger understanding of and empathy for others. As Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout, you can never really understand people until you step inside their shoes. Great literature gives us the power to imagine what the world is like for people whose lives are vastly different from our own: it can challenge our prejudices and, if we're lucky, make us a little wiser, offering us a deeper understanding of what it sometimes means to be a living, individual human being.

On the other hand, there's ample evidence that voracious readers aren't always wise or empathetic characters. Hitler's library contained more than 16,000 volumes. Perhaps they were simply acquired and shelved to make an impression, given that his frequent expressions of megalomaniacal evil did not suggest the character of a quiet, settled, empathetic reader. Much has been made of Hitler's inappropriate appropriation of Nietzsche's philosophy, but I feel quite certain that if Hitler read Nietzsche at all, he must have skimmed over all the important bits, like Otto in A Fish Called Wanda.

Evan Maloney on The Guardian blog ponders the question of the efect of reading on our intimate relationships. How important is it that the one you love is a reader too, and does that make him/her a better lover?

Have You Sent Your Story In Yet???

This is a reminder to the writers among you to get your stories in for the So You Think You Can Write event. It is going to be great fun, and it will be a unique opportunity for the wordsmiths among us,but it can only happen if enough people send in their work. All the details you need are here.

My story is almost good to go, and it would like a few friends!

Costa for Colm

The Costa Book Awards have been announced.

Colm Tóibín beat out strong competition including Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall to take the Novel Award for Brooklyn. As Mark Brown in The Guardian points out, the author he is "something of a bridesmaid" where major awards are concerned, with many near misses in major literary prizes.

Brooklyn is described as :

... a sparely written account of a young woman's emigration from 1950s Ireland to New York

and the judges called it :

Poised, quiet and incrementally shattering - we all loved this book and can't praise it highly enough.

Read more about the book here. The Guardian has an extract from the novel up, here, and you can read reviews here, here, and here.

The first novel award was taken by Raphael Selbourne for Beauty which the judges said :

Captures the raw humanity of inner city life with extraordinary authenticity.

The novel, which marks another success for the independent Tindal Street Press, is about :

... a naive young Bengali woman living in Wolverhampton who finds herself ostracised by her family after a failed arranged marriage.

You can read more about it here and here.

Other winners were Christopher Reid in the poetry category for A Scattering; Graham Farmelo for The Strangest Man his life of quantum physicist Paul Dirac; while Patrick Ness won the children's book award for The Ask and the Answer.

Going West

Produced for the New Zealand Book Council, isn't this one of the best adverts for the joy of books ever?

The excerpt being read is from Maurice Gee's Going West. Gee is recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest novelists and you can find out much more about him and his books here.

Imagining The Nation

This from Jo Kukathas who urges you to sign up quickly if you are interested as places are very limited :

Imagining the Nation: A Play-writing Workshop with Sakate Yoji

Epitaph For The Whales/ Breathless/The Attic - the plays of Sakate Yoji

THE PLAYS OF SAKATE YOJI

Most of Mr. Sakate's works are based on real political history and events and social issues in Japan - the rise of garbage, the rise of Japanese cults, and the phenomenon of "hikikomori," or the "withdrawal" of people into their homes - young people who refuse to come out and engage with society. He focuses on how myths - national, traditional and social - lead people to believe in false realities. He writes plays that lay bare a more bizarre reality. He has created and directed several masterpieces in theatre by introducing his own particular method of documentary writing, myth-making.

At the same time, his plays are inspired by the dramaturgy of traditional Japanese Noh theatre, established by Zeeami. He structures social issues as well as mythological visions of Japanese people - these two strands run parallel in his plays and are based on his unique dramaturgy inspired by Noh.

THE WORKSHOP

This two day workshop will focus on Mr Sakate's play-writing technique and style. Participants are required to attend his talk on Jan 8 where Sakate will introduce his work and Matsui Kentaro will give a talk about Japanese theatre.

INTRODUCTION and TALK

Jan 8 830pm

IMAGINING THE NATION: A history of Japanese theatre - Continuity and Discontinuity

A talk by MATSUI KENTARO producer and dramaturg and Director of The Asia Centre for Creation and Research, Tokyo on the history of Japanese theatre from noh to the present day.

"Imagining the Nation is based on the idea that language is a means for the making the notion of the “nation state”. From the perspective of theatre as the art of language, the theatre has to have its own particular function to be able to develop the notion of “nation” and “nation state” through making and presenting plays. It doesn't only mean using languages for writing plays - rather theatre has its own theatrical language with spaces, acting, directing, musical elements and so on. These theatrical languages have been influential to people to get the images of 'nation'."

NARRATING THE NATION: The Plays of Sakate Yoji - Epitaph For The Whales/ Breathless/The Attic

A presentation by Sakate Yoji playwright/ director of theatre company RIN KO GUN and President of the Playwrights Association of Japan who shares his body of work and talks about the contemporary theatre movement in Japan.


PLAYWRIGHTS WORKSHOP PART 1 with SAKATE YOJI

Jan 9 1030am - 3pm

An introduction to the work of Sakate Yoji - political realism, documentary and mythology in a single play. The parallel worlds of Sakate Yoji's plays.


PLAYWRIGHTS WORKSHOP PART 1 with SAKATE YOJI

Jan 10 1030am - 3pm

A more in-depth look at the marriage of style, technique and content.


(Closed event. Participants must register first. Please e mail jokukathas@gmail.com to register)

WORKSHOP FEE:: RM80 inclusive of lunch


THIS EVENT HAS A SISTER EVENT: X CHANGE!

A MALAYSIAN JAPANESE THEATRE EXCHANGE

Is the NATION a FICTION or a REALITY? And who creates the NATION?

Who creates the fiction of a nation? Who dreams these things up? Who dreams up a One Malaysia or a Rising Sun? Of a Vision 2020 or A Malaysia Truly Asia?

Theatre is one place where alternative realities of a country are imagined and therefore created. It is a country of Gold Rain and Hailstones. A Country which dreams of Atomic Jaya. A Country where the Death of a Patriot is not the death of a Patriot and where you cannot **** Mr Birch. It is Brickfields, The Sandpit and Bolehwood, a place where Pak Dogol, Tok Perak, Athan and Ang Tau Mui live out their lives in the margins of the main narrative.

In this Exchange between Malaysian and Japanese speakers we ask how theatre can and should create strong alternative fictions to any fiction of One-ness.

CHECK OUT OUR EVENT PAGE ON THIS - COMING SOON.

PROFILES

SAKATE YOJI

Was born in 1962, in Okayama. He grew up in the region before went to Tokyo to study Japanese literature at Keio University. In 1981, he became a member of Transposition 21 Theatre Company while he was still a university student.

Transposition 21 was led by YAMAZAKI Tetsu, who was born in 1947, a playwright and director. YAMAZAKI is one of the leading figures of the second generation of the little theatre movement (shogekijo undo) or post-shingeki movement which began in 1960s. This is the theatre which SAKATE first came across and which influenced him.

In 1983, SAKATE formed a new theatre group, the Theatre Company RINKOGUN with himself as leader, playwright and director. He is politically active and his plays, like YAMAZAKI’s, have strong views on contemporary political and social issue in Japan. RINKOGUN’s productions are the result of an innovative collaboration among its residential artists including the stage and lighting designers.

SAKATE has achieved his first major breakthrough with two plays, The Tokyo Trial and A Dangerous Story, which he wrote in 1988. Both plays are about the injustices of the legal system. He wrote a play about lesbians, Come Out in 1989, and Breathless in 1991. Breathless, which discusses the problem of the garbage in Tokyo and the religious cult, Aum Shinrikyo (threatened the Japanese nation with their poison gas murder of Tokyo subway commuters in 1995), had received the Thirty-fifth Kishida Drama Award.

SAKATE wrote Epitaph of the Whales and The Capital of the Kingdom of the Gods in 1993. He continues his experiments in the use of noh in Capital of the Kingdom of the Gods. The play is about Lafcadio Hearn, a writer who came to Japan at the end of 19th century. The production toured in Europe and U.S.A in 1994, 1995 and 1998 to great acclaim. The Boiling Point of the Sea (Umi no futten) in 1997 discusses the situation of the land and the people of Okinawa, Japan’s most southern and newest prefecture.

In 2001, the group traveled to Berlin, Leipzig, Krakow, and Warsaw with their production of Breathless. The company has also created work in collaboration with theatre artists from abroad. Whalers in the South Seas, a work produced in 2000 is created with actors from Indonesia, Philippines and U.S.A.. The company's acclaimed production of The Attic was appeared in Pittsburgh, Miami, Los Angeles and New York in February 2005.

AWARDS
2000:
- Winner, 7th Yomiuri Theater Award for Best Direction - The Emperor and The Kiss (Tenno to Seppun)

- Nominee, 7th Yomiuri Theater Award for Best Production, RINKOGUN - The Emperor and The Kiss

2003:
- Winner, 10th Yomiuri Theater Award for Best Direction, Yoji Sakate - The Attic (Yaneura), Until the Last Person Standing (Saigo no Hitori Made ga Zentai de Aru), Charlie Victor Romeo, Abe Sada and Mutsuo (Abe Sada to Mutsuo)

- Winner, 54th Yomiuri Literature Prize (Drama), Yoji Sakate - The Attic (Yaneura) http://www.curtainup.com/attic.html

- Winner, 37th Kinokuniya Theater Award for Individual Achievement, Yoji Sakate - The Attic (Yaneura), Until the Last Person Standing and Blind Touch (produced by Theatre group EN)

- Nominee, 10th Yomiuri Theater Award for Best Production, RINKOGUN - Until the Last Person Standing (Saigo no Hitori Made ga Zentai de Aru)

MATSUI KENTARO

Mr Matsui set up the Asia Centre For Creation and Research to help develop Exchanges between Asian countries. His long-term goal is to facilitate intellectual and creative exchange between Asian producers, researchers and artists. He has worked extensively with Asian theatre people often in collaboration with the Japan Foundation. He was the producer of the Malaysian Japanese collaboration The Island In Between/Pulau Antara written by Jo Kukathas and Kam Raslan. He created and facilitated a 3 year Asian collaboration project with participants from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. The Malaysian participants, Jo Kukathas (Instant Café), Loh Kok Man (Pentas Projects) and Nam Ron (Rumah Anak Theatre RAT) continue to collaborate in Malaysia. Mr Matsui wants to build on the strong connections made in previous collaborations and deepen the exchanges on a intellectual and research level.

--
Jo Kukathas
Director
The Instant
CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS
[CHAI]

No 6 Jalan 6/3
Petaling Jaya 46000
Selangor
Malaysia
(+6) 03- 77848792
(+6) 0163582035

Clarissa's 2010 in Fiction

Clarissa Tan was kind enough to send me a copy of her article which appeared in Singapore's The Business Times on New Year's Day. Here are the books to look out for in 2010 :

Journey to the East

The first half of 2010 looks like an exciting time for Asia-themed fiction, while heavyweights such as Carey, McEwan and Martel will also give us new works

By Clarissa Tan

ONE approaches a phrase like “Asian literature” with some trepidation. It is an infinitely rubbery term, encompassing as it does works by Asian authors about Asia, works by Western authors on Asia, works by Asian authors in the West, and all the permutations in between. It seems parochial, even ethnocentric, to single out works of fiction by some slippery definition based vaguely on continent of origin. Good literature, after all, belongs to the world.

Still, there seems to be good reason to group Asian literary fiction as such. Firstly, many of these books, with their jacket covers depicting dragons or geisha and their titles that evoke kitchen gods or mangoes, obviously market themselves in this manner. And who can blame them? Publishing is a tough business, and one must find a niche. Secondly, in an industry still overwhelmingly weighted toward Western authors and books, it seems fair to address the imbalance a bit in favour of one’s own region.

In this sense 2010, especially the first half of it, looks like a robust time for Asia-themed literary works, many by first-time authors. One book that lies at the end-2009 beginning 2010 cusp, but which Singapore bookstores will start stocking in January, is Eugenia Kim’s The Calligrapher’s Daughter. This debut novel, which has drawn praise from many quarters including The Washington Post, is inspired by the life of the author’s mother. It is about Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, who is determined to carve her own destiny in early 20th century occupied Korea.

Another book published at the turn of the year is Erick Setiawan’s Of Bees and Mist which, the publicity material tells us, draws from the author’s childhood experiences and is about “the love and loss between three generations of women in a mystical, magical land inspired by Chinese values, Indonesian superstitions and American ideology.”

Also in January, we can expect Su Tong’s The Boat to Redemption and Madhav Mathur’s The Diary of an Unreasonable Man. The Suzhou-born Su, one of China’s best-selling novelists, shot to fame in 1993 when Zhang Yimou's film of his novella Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for an Oscar. Boat, according to the synopsis, is about how “disgraced Secretary Ku has been banished from the Party after it has been officially proven that he does not have a fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom and is therefore not the son of a revolutionary martyr, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute.”

Diary, in turn, is described by its publicity blurb as “bold, fresh and darkly comic”. Set in Mumbai, the book deals with the antics of Pranav Kumar, an advertising executive who is also an aspiring writer, an anarchist and a fugitive of the police. A debut author, Mathur divides his time between his hometown of Delhi and Singapore, where he works as a banker. The film rights to his book have already been bought by Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap.

Come May, we will have Jean Kwok’s Girl In Translation. Another debut novel, Kwok’s “deeply moving” book seems to jive closely with the author’s own experiences as a girl who follows her immigrant family from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, New York.

The coming year will also see new works by some of the most honoured names in literary fiction. Peter Carey, twice winner of the Booker Prize, will in February release Parrot and Olivier in America, a funny portrait of how a French aristocrat and an itinerant painter are brought together by their travels in America.

Ian McEwan, he of Amsterdam and Atonement fame, presents us with Solar in March. The book deals with Michael Beard, a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Beard’s professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, allowing him to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster. Said to be a “profound and stylish” book (did we expect anything but?), the action will take the reader from the Arctic Circle to the deserts of New Mexico.

Yann Martel, who gave the world the biggest-selling Booker ever with the Life of Pi, will be back in April with Beatrice and Virgil. The novel is about a man called Henry who gets embroiled with a taxidermist, a donkey called Beatrice and a howler monkey called Virgil. Along the way, we are promised, “Martel asks profound moral and philosophical questions about the nature of love and evil.”

April definitely cannot be the cruellest month, as it will also bring us The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. Mitchell, whose works have been shortlisted for the Booker, the Guardian First Book, the James Tait Black Memorial and the Costa Novel Of The Year prizes (among others), has set his latest work at the end of the 18th century. De Zoet is a junior clerk who disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company's remotest trading post in a Japan.

The enigmatic Don DeLillo will present us with Point Omega – about a secret war advisor who has gone in search of space and time in a desert “somewhere south of nowhere” – in February. Bret Easton Ellis, who has cited DeLillo as one of his influences, offers us Imperial Bedrooms in June. In 1985, Ellis had stunned and disturbed with Less Than Zero, which chronicled the consequences of hedonism among the bereft youth of 1980s Los Angeles. Now, 25 years later in Imperial, Ellis returns to the same characters as they face an even greater period of disaffection – their own middle age.

Mid-year also brings us The Changeling by Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe. Changeling is described as “an ambitious, sweeping novel about friendship and the distance we are prepared to travel to preserve it”. Translated by Deborah Boehm, it is about how a writer in his 60s, Kogito, rekindles a childhood friendship with his estranged brother-in-law, Goro. As they write to each other, Goro sends Kogito a case of cassette tapes onto which he has recorded reflections on their friendship. As Kogito listens one night, he hears something that unsettles him profoundly: “I'm going to head over to the Other Side now.”

Over at the ‘blockbuster’ end of things, we can expect some highly popular books to sweep into our consciousness this year. The month of March will see Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology, which blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into “a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.” Columbia Pictures has already bought the movie rights, and the film will apparently be overseen by the executive producers who gave us The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons.

There is also Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna, which we are assured made waves at the 2009 London Book Fair and is a kind of “The Thorn Birds meets A Suitable Boy”. The novel is set in a coffee plantation in Coorg, southern India, in the 19th Century. June should bring us My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares, touted as “a magical, mysterious and heartbreaking story of true love for fans of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Twilight.”

Ken Follett, beloved author of The Pillars of the Earth, is due to give us Fall of Giants in September. This book, which will be published in more than six countries simultaneously, follows the destinies of five families – one American, one Russian, one German, one English and one Welsh – through the First World War and the Russian Revolution. It is to be the first novel of Follet’s Century trilogy.

If you’re into something more startling and off the beaten track, look out for Chris Cleave’s Little Bee. The Simon & Schuster website for the book says mysteriously that too much of the plot cannot be revealed, affirms that “once you have read it, you’ll want to tell everyone about it”, then begs you not to share the storyline either, as “the magic is in how it unfolds”. We can say for sure, however, that Little Bee – if you’ll pardon the terrible pun – has already created a buzz.

Have a Happy New Year of reading.

Images of Beatrice and Virgil, Point Omega, and Solar are from Pansing: all other images from Penguin Singapore.

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List junkies will also enjoy The Guardian's piece on the best books to look forward to in 2010.