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.

Dipika for Man Asian Literary Prize

The longlist for this year's Man Asian literary prize has been announced and you can find it here, with more information about the award and each of the authors here in the Press Release.

And one of them - Dipika Mukherjee who was nominated for her unpublished novel Thunder Demons - will be appearing at Readings@Seksan tomorrow! Biggest congratulations to her. (And, in fact to all the authors.)

If her name sounds familiar, it may well be that you have come across the two collections of local short stories she edited : The Merlion and The Hibiscus (Penguin 2002) which brought together Malaysian and Singaporean writers, and Silverfish New Writing 6 (p0ssibly the strongest anthology of the series).

Apparently entries for the competition came from Malaysia but none of them made the cut this time. This, though, is the award to aim for if you have a novel in the works. Next year, then. Next year.

Silverfish Swarming

One of the beacons of hope Amir Muhammad saw burning for local writing in English in the Kakiseni article I linked to yesterday was Silverfish New Writing. Five years on, the annual anthology is still going strong, and Silverfish New Writing 6 was launched last night at the Impiana Hotel, KL. The event, like the book, was sponsored by HSBC (under its HSBC in the Arts banner). Here are my (blurry as always) photos of the event.

Guest Ioalanda Capodanno with Professor Quayum, co-editor of Silverfish New Writing 3

From left: Datuk Shan (whose stories have appeared in earlier Silverfish collections), New Writing 6 editor Dipika Mukherjee, my buddies and writing running mates Saras Manickam and Soo Choon.

Thaatchaayini Kananatu, who wrote the story In God's Belly signs my book ...

... as does Peter Brown (Dysfunction). (Peter is a singer-songwriter and I've often enjoyed listening to his band Passion.)

A bit blurry, but this captures Raman quite well, doesn't it?

Phek Chin (far right) and Usha (centre) of Silverfish with a friend.

There were speeches from Deputy Chairman and CEO of HSBC Dato' Zarir J Cama, who told us that P.G. Wodehouse had also been a banker with HSBC (bet you didn't know that!), Raman (who quoted the Paul Auster speech about the uselessness of literature and talked about how we all need stories), and then a short word from Dipika Muhkerjee who had flown all the way back from Holland for the event, before the grand unveiling of the book.

The writers and editor up on stage with artist Shahril Nizam Ahmad who designed the cover, next to Raman.

Saras, relishing being a published writer at last, signs copies.

Junaida bte Hassan (A Whistle in the Night) took time off work to travel all the way up from Singapore.

I met many other interesting people and had a very enjoyable evening. I will write more about the book later when I've finished it.

Postscript:

Raman's much nicer photos of the event are here.