Writers Unlimited Tour of KL

We're just a few days away from the Writer's Unlimited Tour - our mini lit-fest happening in June. Please click up to size the poster and the information about the writers taking part. Please pass on the information to your own circle.

Press Release

Writers Unlimited Tour KL/Makassar 2001
June 10,11 & 12th June

Writers Unlimited - the Hague Literature Network (www.winternachten.nl)

Since 1995, Writers Unlimited has focussed its attention on the maintenance and development of the network of writers from both The Netherlands and mainly non-Western countries. Writers Unlimited (formerly known as Winternachten) organises an annual international literature festival in The Hague in January. More than seventy writers, poets, thinkers and musical groups come together for a programme focussing on the presentation of literary work to the public, in addition to hosting cultural and social debate. Apart from its annual festival in The Hague, Writers Unlimited organises literary events abroad, in cooperation with local partner organisations. Once every two years, Writers Unlimited organises a literary festival in each of their partner countries. Amongst their current partner organisations are ITEF Festival in Istanbul, University of Western Cape in South Africa and the Literary Festival Foundation in Surinam. Writers Unlimited is coming to Malaysia, and ‘Readings@CeritAku’ is pleased to be its first local partner.

Readings was created by Malaysian poet/writer Bernice Chauly in January of 2005 as a platform for live literary events, which focusses on emerging and established writers. Sharon Bakar took over as organiser in 2006 for Readings at 67tempinis satu in Bangsar, and Bernice Chauly expanded the literary repertoire to create Readings@CeritAku at KL’s top jazz bar No Black Tie in 2007. Now in its seventh year, both Readings’ are the city’s longest lasting live literary events.

“I was fortunate to have been invited to tour as a writer/poet with Writers Unlimited last year to the Dutch Antilles, Suriname and South Africa and was privileged and honoured to have seen the work that Writers Unlimited does in countries outside the Netherlands. As a result of this collaboration, Writers Unlimited has decided to come to Kuala Lumpur to seek new shores and to work with Malaysian writers and thinkers”.

The theme of the festival is Writing the Truth – Fact of Fiction? We are fortunate to have four touring writers of various origins from the Netherlands, Turkey, Egypt and the US who will be performing in languages as diverse as Arabic, Dutch, Turkish and English. Our five Malaysian writers will perform in Bahasa Malaysia and English. Writers will discuss their own work as intersections of history, politics and autobiography. Is fiction ‘the lie’ that can help us get at ‘the truth’? Or do we rely on fact as truth to then fictionalise new versions of the truth?

This three-day event will incorporate readings, panel discussions and a visit to a local university. This small literary festival has the potential to invigorate and inspire many who write, think and enjoy discourse.

We hope to see you there!
Bernice Chauly
(festival director)
Bernice Chauly (festival director)

012 323 0929/mulutmata@gmail.com


Bernice Chauly is a writer, poet, photographer, filmmaker and actor who has worked extensively in the arts in KL for twenty years. She has worked on many award-winning projects and has also written, acted and directed for the stage and screen. Her photographs have also been exhibited locally and internationally. She has published two collections of poems, a collection of short stories and has performed in literary festivals all over the world. Her upcoming fictive memoir, Growing Up With Ghosts, chronicles a hundred years of her Punjabi and Chinese family diasporas and stories will be published later this year. She lives in KL with her two daughters.

The Naïve and Sentimental Novelist

My review which was in the Reads Monthly section of The Sunday Star yesterday :

What actually happens when we read a literary novel? And what is in the mind of an author when he writes one? These are the central questions addressed by Orhan Pamuk in The Naïve and Sentimental Novelist. And since the Turkish writer is both an avid reader and the Nobel Prize winning author of several internationally acclaimed novels (including Snow, My Name is Red, and The White Castle), he is extremely well-qualified to do so.

The title of the book is taken from the famous essay by Friedrich Schiller . Pamuk’s “naïve” novelists, he says, are unaware of the techniques they are using, and they write spontaneously as if carrying out a natural act, as opposed to “sentimental” or reflective novelists “who are concerned with artificiality of the text and its failure to attain reality”. I have to say though that I did not find the distinction a particularly useful scaffold for Pamuk’s arguments, particularly as the author himself admits that all great novelists ultimately have to be a blend of both. At times, his discussion seems rather abstract and academic, perhaps not surprisingly, as these six linked essays were initially delivered in the form of lectures at Harvard University in 2009.
On Naive and Sentimental Poetry

But it is when he writes more anecdotally and personally that he is at his best. Anyone who has fallen passionately in love with reading will recognize themselves in Pamuk’s descriptions of his younger self, encountering the great works of fiction for the first time, discovering in them important truths about life, and acquiring from them “a breathtaking sense of freedom and self-confidence”. Pamuk draws on the classics for his examples, including Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and War and Peace, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

Pamuk captures the special magic of the literary form. He describes how the words on the page become invisible as we look through them onto an entire landscape with the ability “to oscillate between the long view and fleeting moments, general thoughts and specific events, at a speed no other literary genre can offer.” We can simultaneously see, he says “the broader picture, the whole landscape, the thoughts of the individual, and the nuances of the character’s mood.”

More than once he refers to the “intense and tiring effort” required to read a literary novel, and he lists a whole lot of different things that the reader actually has to do simultaneously to connect with the text. We observe the scene and follow the narrative, and transform the words on the page into images. Our memory labours intensively to hold all the threads of the story and what we know of the characters. We appreciate the style, make judgments about the moral choices the characters make, and congratulate ourselves for being able to read “a difficult” novel.

As we read, we are constantly wondering, he says, how much of the novel tells of real experience and how much is an act of imagination, and also how much of the author’s own life is invested in the fiction. Indeed, he devotes a whole essay to the topic, but concludes, not surprisingly, that “the novel is not completely imaginary nor completely factual.”

But even as we are deriving pleasure from the surface details of the novel, we are searching at a deeper level for “motive, idea, purpose”, in fact what he calls “a secret centre”. Reading literary fiction, he says, is the act of determining the real centre of the novel, “whose source remains ambiguous but which nevertheless illuminates the whole.” It is the slow uncovering of this centre that gives the reader full satisfaction.

Popular genre fiction, he says, typically lacks this centre, and is read largely for comfort. But he does single out some genre writers (including Patricia Highsmith, John Le Carre, Stanislaw Lem and Philip K. Dick) as authors whose work can be read at a deeper level.

Pamuk is perhaps at his most controversial when he talks about the creation of character in the novel. He suggests that over the past 150 years our curiosity about characters has taken up much more space in the novel than it has in life, and that “It has sometimes become too self-indulgent, almost vulgar”. He believes that “People do not actually have as much character as we find portrayed in novels” , and reckons that human character is not nearly as important in shaping our live as it is made out to be in the novels and literary criticism of the west. This certainly is food for serious thought.

He goes on to attack the idea of the character-driven plot, where the author seems to expect that “… the hero like a prompter on stage will whisper to the novelist the entire course of the novel.” This approach, taught extensively on creative writing courses, “merely goes to show that many novelists begin to write their novels without being sure of their story, and that is the only way they are able to write.” He says that in his own writing his protagonist’s character will be formed, as a real person’s is, by situations and events.

Much of what is written about literature in academic circles is made inaccessible to the ordinary book-lover and writer by the jargon of literary theory. This book can be enjoyed by both the enthusiastic reader and by writers, and should serve to spark deeper discussion of the craft of the novel - whether or not one chooses to agree on all points with Pamuk.

And of course, perhaps more importantly for fans of Pamuk’s work, The Naïve and Sentimental Novelist gives an intriguing insight into the preoccupations and approach to writing of one of the world’s most important authors.

Response to Alan Wong's Piece in Quill Magazine

This is my letter to the editor in response to Alan Wong's piece in the current issue of MPH's Quill magazine. It is addressed to the editor of Quill, Vimala Seneviratne.


Dear Vimala

I am writing to express my hurt over an article in Quill magazine by Alan Wong.

It isn’t that I mind fair criticism of what I do, and I accept his review of my book in good spirit, but I feel that he has been very unfair in what he has said about the events I organise each month and about my book launch, and I am really troubled that this is the impression that is being communicated to the general public who read your magazine.

He criticizes my choices of venues. I have to point out that Seksan Gallery in Lucky Garden is easily accessible. Every month on my advertising on my blog and Facebook, I link to a map of the place. It is walking distance of Bangsar Village and Bangsar LRT station. It is a beautiful venue, filled with art, yet at the same time relaxed and informal. And thanks to the ongoing generosity of Seksan, we are able to keep the event completely free!

We chose the venue MAP@PUBLIKA for the launch as I was invited to take part in a charity event, raising funds as part of Lifest for Yayasan Orang Kurang Upaya Kelantan (YOKUK) or the Kelantan Foundation For The Disabled which I felt was a very worthy cause, and yet this fact is not mentioned in the piece. Yes, it was a little out of the way in Solaris Dutamas, (just off Jalan Duta) but the theatre was beautiful, and the music, food and readings I hope more than made up for the inconvenience. I spent a great deal of money to make a the launch a success, and once again the event was free for my audience. It is worth noting that although many people are encountering this venue for the first time, it will most probably become KL’s major arts hub.

Wong does not mention at all our other venues, No Black Tie in Jalan Mesui, or Alexis in Bangsar – easily accessible, up-market nightspots which cater to a different audience. (We also actually pay the writers who appear at No Black Tie – how many events are prepared to do that?)

Not having the courage of his own convictions, Wong hides behind an anonymous “friend” who he quotes as saying :

"Whatever they may aspire to be, the plain fact is Readings invariably attracts the same old names. It's a literati's Ivy League. How do you encourage growth and participation when newcomers feel judged not long after they step through the door? That can’t be healthy."

This is surely a contradiction to his earlier statement that over 6 years, the event has given space to more than 400 writers!

I try to give priority at Seksan's to recently published authors who have a book to promote – including those from MPH. As you will know, MPH has often responded by sending sales staff and offering a generous discount on books. Eric Forbes will tell you that a few days ago I asked him for the list of writers in the Sini Sana travel collection you are putting out, and I have written to every last one of them (mostly people I have not heard of before) to invite them to read.

I am constantly on the lookout for writers whom we may not have heard of before, and I try also to include overseas authors passing through Malaysia, because I feel that all this enriches the local writing community.

If there is an impression that there is “an ivy league” it may be because it is necessary, from time to time, to feature the best local writers who really set standards.

I wonder, in what sense do “newcomers feel judged not long after they step through the door”? We do our best to look out for and to welcome newcomers, whether they are reading their work or audience. I do apologise if anyone has gone away with the impression that there is any elitism in the event, but this is an impression that I work very hard to dispel because snobbishness is something I simply can’t abide.

To say that I don’t encourage newcomers is crazy. I teach creative writing (as you know, because when I began, MPH gave my course its first home). Some of my course participants have read at the event. Four of them are featured in my collection, Readings From Readings – the first time any of them have been published. Furthermore, I include unpublished but hardworking writers in my line-up wherever there is space. Last month three new writers got to read. This month, another two. The feedback I have had from them is that this is a positive experience that has built their confidence.

And for the record, I have a policy of not inviting a writer back to read more than once in a year. Over the six years we have been going, some writers have read three or four times over that time, which is hardly excessive.

The problem with the article is that it is undoing a great deal of the good that I am trying my best to do in building an event that will encourage new writing and showcasing our best!

And maybe this piece hurts more, because it comes from someone who has seemed over the month to be supportive of what I do at Seksan’s and I can’t help but feel personally betrayed.

I hope that you will give space to this letter in the next edition of Quill to redress the balance.

Yours sincerely,

Sharon Bakar
Bernice Chauly

Enter Your Novel for the Man Asia Literary Prize

Publishers in Malaysia/Singapore and of course the rest of SE Asia are invited to send in submissions for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize.

The 2011 Prize will be awarded to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in 2011. The winning author will be awarded USD 30,000 and the translator (if any) USD 5,000. Submissions are invited through publishers based in any country.

Deadline for entries is 31 August 2011 and copies of the entered title due 1 October, 2011. The longlist will be announced in October 2011, shortlist in January 2012 and the winner at a ceremony in Hong Kong in March 2012. Previous MALP winners are Bi Feiyu for Three Sisters (2010), Su Tong for Boat to Redemption (2009), Miguel Syjuco for Ilustrado (2008), Jiang Rong for Wolf Totem (2007).

Details of eligibility and all entry rules can be found at .

Online entry is available at .

For enquiries, please contact Ms. Minna Cheung at office@manasianliteraryprize.org or Ms. Marina Ma, Prize Manager at marinama@manasinaliteraryprize.org.

Getting Creative!

One of my course participants, Brigid Bose, wrote a piece for the newsletter of the Association of British Women In Malaysia about what goes on in my creative writing classes at Learning Works :

A Lovely Collection!

A review of Readings From Readings by Soon Heng in this month's Time Out.