Bernice in the Caribbean

Malaysia's Tamil Writers

One can be forgiven if one has never heard of – never mind, read – Malaysian Tamil authors. It’s not that they don’t exist. It’s just that they are not known (or made known) to a non-Tamil-speaking audience. 

and who better than Uthaya Sankar SB to shine a light on them?

of the contemporary Tamil writing scene, Uthaya says :

Generally speaking, this is the state of the Tamil literary scene in Malaysia. Content takes precedence over form. Even then, one need not have a new story to tell – one can always rehash the same story for the hundredth time. In fact, it seems that as long as you are competent in written Tamil, you can see your story in print.

But, Uthaya concludes (based on his experience with financing M. Balachandran's sell-out collection Illa Manathin Vergal in 1997) : 

There is a new breed of talented young writers, and readers are ready for their unconventionality.

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.

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.

Preeta's Rightful Share

I want to tell you about my friend Kandan. Full name Kandan A/L Palanivel. Twenty years old. Handsome bastard. Of course we men don’t stare at each other and think who’s handsome, who’s ugly, of course not. I’m just saying only. If you had seen him, you also would have said the same thing. We all—me and Kandan and one whole group of fellers—used to lepak at one bhaiyyi coffee shop near KL Sentral there, and even the stylish college girls, the ones from rich-rich families, talking with hell of an American slang and all, used to come and sit with us on Saturday afternoons. Giggling, blinking their big eyes at him like he was God. Even if I strip naked also nobody will look at me like that, I tell you. Fooyoh, terror lah that feller, six feet tall, big shoulders, hair like a TV model, and dunno from where he got brown eyes, almost like mat salleh like that. Next to him Hrithik Roshan also will lose. But he was just a simple boy from Rawang, laborer’s son, never gone anywhere. Cannot even speak English properly.

Okay, go and read the rest of Preeta Samarasan's short story A Rightful Share at online magazine Guernica.

Two Books for Ellen

One of our featured authors at Readings@Seksan last Saturday has not just one but two titles newly released - both of them with different publishers, and both of them blurbed by me! (Professional!) Ellen Whyte is someone I wanted very much to meet when I read her Katz Tales columns in The Star and realised that she was as feline crazy as me. And anyone doing PR on behalf of our furry friends, in a country where pets are too often neglected and abandoned, can only be a good thing. I'm really delighted that she now has out Katz Tales : Under the Velvet Paw (anyone who has been owned by a cat will really appreciate the title!) To quote myself on the back cover :

Ellen Whyte has the uncanny ability to think herself into the mind of a cat, and writes with great charm while managing to imparting a great deal of practical information. Scoop, Au and Target deserve to be Malaysia's first feline superstars.

I think my words may have gone to Au's head, as you will see later. The second book Ellen has out is a compilation of her Logomania columns for The Star's Mind Our English page. Logomania : Where Common Phrases Come From and How to Use Them is published by MPH. And to ahem - quote myself again :

Logomania is a fascinating and very enjoyable exploration of some of the quirkier phrases in the English language and of the historical circumstances and cultural practices that gave rise to them. Ellen Whyte also provides plenty of examples of the expressions in use so you can comfortably slip these new expressions into everyday conversation.

I have learned a lot about my own language that I didn't know before, and remain fascinated about how the words we use are actually artefacts. Check out some more of her very readable columns here and here. Her blog is also a very enjoyable read, and she put up a very useful piece after the publishing symposium we attended in Singapore last week on how to put stuff online without giving your content away. (A problem we are both concerned about.) Now then, just because I feel naughty, thought I'd put up a pic I took of Ellen and a blow-up doll in Singapore last week. Ellen is the one on the left.

Ioannis at Borders

You can catch up with author Ioannis Gatsiounis at Borders, The Curve between 3-4pm this Saturday, where he will be signing copies of his new collection of short fiction Velvet and Cinder Blocks.

The Merdeka Miracle

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

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

Pak Samad and Friends Win the Battle

BM is a language that must be maintained. It is just a matter of getting used to learning it.

Now that the government has decided to revert to the national language for the teaching of Science and Maths, national laureate Datuk A. Samad Said must be feeling pretty pleased that the campaign he supported has been successful. The Malay Mail interviewed him yesterday.

It's a very emotional and complex issue, with much heated debate on both sides, still going on. I wrote about my feelings here, and might well be tempted to write more thoughts on the topic.

Postscript :

Author Robert Raymer wrote an article about the issue for The Borneo Post.

Indiepenance Day

July 4th is Indiepenance Day.

No, don't jump on me for a spelling error. You see Matahari Books and Stormkitchen will be launching New Malaysian Essays 2 and Elarti:ga respectively on that day. And Amir notes :

Those of you who will read Yusuf Martin's essay will appreciate the irony of the date.

They are having a barbecue house party to celebrate at 22 Lorong Rahim Kajai 13, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail. (This is the side of TTDI that is closer to the primary school than to the Pizza Hut). It starts at 8pm and ends at 11pm.

More about book and party here on Amir's blog.

Mapping Tash

The bad times in writing are numerous and range from being merely bad to truly catastrophic. Any writer will tell you that the daily grind of writing is in itself a challenge, but anyone engaged in a serious project will experience great lows during which one doubts the very validity of one’s existence as a writer – sometimes it feels as if one can’t even write a single sentence.

The job of a writer is largely concerned with being able to withstand these dips in morale. Sometimes they can last months, during which the whole of your life seems futile. But writing is cyclical and if you can hang on long enough and keep working through these dips the good times do come back. Eventually.

Comforting words from Tash Aw who talks about his new novel, his creativity, and how the press got it wrong about the money is interviewed by Soon Heng Lim in today's Star. I especially like the question about whether serious fiction/literature is scripture for a secular world?

Lim also reviews the novel here.

Glad I am to see that this time round there's plenty of publicity for an author of whom we are rightly proud.

Tash in KL

(Click up to full size.)

Here's a list of Tash Aw's events in KL this time round, and you can see just how packed his schedule is. Hope you manage to catch up with him, to hear about the novel and get your copy signed for posterity.

More on the Silverfish event here.

The evening event at No Black Tie is a Ceritaku@readings organised by Bernice, and features Tash in the company of other local writers. More info on this coming up soon.

Postscript :

Even if you can't catch Tash live, you can hear him on the radio :

5 June 2009, Fri
9.00am : NTV7 The Breakfast Show

8 June 2009, Mon
7.25am : LiteFM 105.7

9 June 2009, Tues
11.00am : TraxxFM 90.3
2.00pm : BFM 89.9

Tash's London Launch

I remember a line in Kam Raslan's Memoirs of an Old Boy along the lines of "When London was part of the Malaysian Empire". Well Thurs 7th of May sure felt like that for me. I went along to Tash Aw's London launch for Map of The Invisible World at Asia House. There was a real crush of people to hear him talk to the debonair Karim Raslan who had flown in from KL specially for the event. Kak Teh has more of the story, some pics, and all about our gastronomic adventures and vigourous testing of the six degrees of separation law afterwards, and it was great too to meet up with another Malaysian book-loving friend and blogger Fiona Wan who also writes about our evening here. Tash will be in KL on 7th June and there are a whole lot of activities scheduled for him which I will tell you about later.

Inspector Singh in Tescos

I'm putting up some of the more literary pictures from my U.K. trip. Shamini Flint asked me to keep an eye out for her novel in Tescos and elsewhere. Here it is on special offer in the harrow branch of Tescos, and at number 7 in their hit parade. (I think the garland of dishwashing brushes is a nice touch - shows just how accessible books are to shoppers.)

Sadly the copy I bought had pages wrongly numbered. Page 42 faced page 213. So I wasn't very far in and had to return it. But I couldn't get a replacement copy because they had sold out. Good sign.

I also saw it in the local Waterstones where the copies were all just fine. Other friends have reported sightings across the UK.

Shih-Li for Frank O'Connor

Congratulations to Shih-Li Kow and to Silverfish. Ripples has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story prize (as Wena Poons Lions in Winter was last year).

The list is 57 strong (up from 38 last year) with most entries coming from the US and UK, and there are some pretty big names on there, including Chimananda Ngozi Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro.

As The Short Review says :

... this is a wonderful move on the part of the organisers, giving much-needed publicity to many, many books not published by mainstream publishers but by small presses without teams of publicists ... . What is also wonderful is that "big" names are alongside newer writers, showcasing that the short story is not just the province of those who have yet to "graduate" to novels!

(Thanks Steven of Horizon Books for sending me the news and the links!)

Tash the Role Model

Tash Aw is featured in this month's Time Out, talking to Sam Coleman about his new novel Map of the Invisible World, and how he would like to be a role model for young writers from the region. (Click up to full size to read.)

Writers for Breakfast

Here are three of the short story writers from Urban Odysseys - Daphne Lee, Yusof Martin and Karina Bahrin on NTV7's The Breakfast Show earlier this week.

A Master Storyteller

It’s amazing to read about Hindu beliefs and iconography – narrated, as it were, from the inside – in the national language. It makes you realise how free of iconoclasm, and therefore how neutered and ‘circumcised’, the language has been over the decades.

If Uthaya were merely a spokesman for his race, this would not make him an interesting writer. What counts for more: His supple and surprising uses of plot and perspective, his sense of irony and the absurd, his occasionally breathtaking endings.

Amir Muhammad reviews Uthaya Sankar's collection of short fiction Rudra Avatara: Kumpulan Cerpen Bahasa Malaysia.