A Sense of HOME

Instant Cafe Theatre present HOME, new works by Jit Murad, Jo Kukathas, Ridzwan Othman and Zedeck Siew around the theme of HOME and family on September 5, 2009, 5.30-7.30 at their new home - CHAI House, 6 Jalan 6/3, Petaling Jaya.

The exhibition HOME is still on till 16 Sept so be sure to turn up early to have a look at the show or stay on to talk about the work over a nice cup of chai.

Admission is free but donations are welcomed.

More details here. Or call 0377848792, or Email: chai@instantcafetheatre.com

CeritAku@Readings June

This month we feature a stellar lineup of Malaysian writers who will be reading and storytelling at No Black Tie, 9.30pm, Sunday 7th June :

Tash Aw
Clarissa Tan
Charlene Rajendran
Hishamuddin Rais
Zedeck Siew
and
Farish Noor

Tel: 03 2142 3737 (reservations recommended)

www.noblacktie.com.my

Cover: RM 20
Books will be sold. (20% discount for Tash's books unless you have the 25% The Star coupon.)

ceritAku@readings is hosted by Bernice Chauly.

Spread the word. See you there!

--------------------------

bernice chauly
writer/photographer/actor
www.bernicechauly.wordpress.com

hp +6 012 323 0929
fax +6 03 7493 1573
kuala lumpur, malaysia

Zedeck Investigates

Zedeck Siew in online Malaysian newsportal The Nutgraph has also been investigating the disappearance of Farish Noor's From Majapahit to Putrajaya from the bookshelves of Kinokuniya.

The bookshop's corporate affairs manager Theresa Chong told The Nut Graph :

Kinokuniya will not be selling these titles until the Home Ministry arrives at a judgement. We do not practice self-censorship, but this is a pending issue, so we will wait for a proper decision ...

But though he bookstore was supposed to have been told of a decision within two weeks, three and a half months later they are waiting! Other titles, apparently mostly on religion, were also seized.

As Rashid Khan of ZI Publications (which also publishes the book in Malay translation) says :

Books do not require a permit ... The ministry should first study the product, read the book, and conclude that it is unacceptable. Then only can they direct bookstores to not sell the book. I believe that a book is legal until it is banned. ... [These confiscations are] not fair — not to the author, the reader, the publisher, or the bookseller.

I managed to miss this excellent article The Bane of Book Banning by Ooi Ying Nee which came out in August shortly after the arbitrary banning of Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism edited by Noraini Othman.
The article points out that incidents of book banning have increased almost 43% under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's government, despite avowals of greater openness and transparency.

I believe, Noriani Othman is also yet to hear of the fate of her book.

This is simply not an acceptable state of affairs!

Teapots, Fundamentalists, Pipes and Convivial Company

Saturday's "Readings" at Seksan's ...

Is this a party or a serious literary event?

Catching up with friends over a glass of wine.

The very supportive audience .

Brave Kenny went first, and it was his first reading. He read a piece he'd blogged for International Women's Day, called I am Woman, then 5 Pieces, and a quirky fairytale with alternative endings.

Jerome Kugan making us all stretch before he began! Jerome read some beautiful poems which he has compiled into a chapbook Imaginary Poems. (You can buy it from Jerome at just RM5)

I don't have to list them for you because you can just glance at the notes on Jerome's hand! My favourite was the Teapot Poem which he read last. Between the poems he sang acapella ... he has a magical voice and I hope it won't be too long before his album is completed.

Antares read from an unpublished manuscript (extracts of which you can find on his blog) Art Thou a Goddam Fundamentalist? which promoted most enjoyable engagement of the grey matter. One line that made me chuckle was about how religion provides a safe route from confusion to fusion with the one force of the universe. Antares is such an interesting thinker you just want to sit and listen to him expound at length. I intend to blog about his new book Tanah Tujuh as soon as I finish it ... and who knows but one of these days we might take "Readings" over to Magick River!

Chuck Kramer is a native of Chicago, now living in KL. He's an experience poetry slammer and last month we heard some of his poetry when he warmed the audience up for the slam with Chris Mooney-Singh. You can find a piece of his flash fiction published online here. He says that he has two unpublished novel manuscripts in his drawer, and he read from one of them - very good stuff I'd love to see on the page. (Write a novel set here Chuck, we need more good local fiction!)

Han was in last month's slam and came back to give us more of his work. Most of his poems are very short and he says he creates them like "found poetry" crafting them from phrases he likes the sound of and brings together. You can find more of his work on his blog and he has one of his poems in the present issue of KLue Magazine.

Sharanya insisted Kakiseni editor Zedeck Siew wear her rose and shawl. He's already getting called "pretty boy" and this won't do his reputation any good at all, I'm afraid! He read part of a short story "in progress" - I think it was called The Great Straights. Look forward to seeing the finished piece in the not-too-distant-future.

Thanks all who came and took part or supported. Sorry the timings went a bit out and we didn't have very long for a break. If you guys read next time stick to the 15 minute allocation, okay??

Thanks to Seksan for the space, filled with intriguing pipe sculptures this time, and to La Bodega for the lovely wine.

Thanks to the friends who cleared up, to Kenny for the poster and to Reza who is an absolute whiz at switching the amplifier on and off on command.

See you next month. We're aiming for May 26th and we have a great line up ... including poet Wong Phui Nam!

Earthly Powers

When I was posted, a year after my arrival, to Kuala Kangsar to teach English, I found myself on my own mission to understand Burgess and the Malaya he painted. The royal town did not disappoint: it had more than its share of eccentric characters, the Ubudiah mosque was still ‘as bulbous as a clutch of onions’, the Istana did indeed look as if it had been designed by a Los Angeles architect -- just as Burgess had described them -- and I became a fully paid-up, bar-propping member of the Iblis (sorry, the Idris) Club.

But by the 1980s, MCKK had completely forgotten the author. There wasn’t a copy of a single one of his books in the library, no commemorative plaque on the wall, and an embarrassed silence in the staffroom when I asked if anyone had read him. Not even the longest serving English teacher -- who had been on the staff at the same time as Burgess -- was prepared to discuss him.

Burgess was incredibly prolific, producing over thirty novels, including the visionary and dystopian A Clockwork Orange , and Earthly Powers, which was nominated for the 1980 Booker prize and recently voted third best British novel of the last 25 years. He also produced hundreds of reviews, academic studies, television and film scripts, opera librettos -- and, being an amateur composer, even several symphonies. Be that as it may, Kuala Kangsar just wasn’t interested. Never mind that the author was arguably one of the most important literary figures of the 20th Century.

My article about the neglect of Burgess, Malay College, and the restricted books issue is up on the Kakiseni website. Eliciting controversy, I hope with all my heart. Please do go read.

The jawi inscription at the top, is the dedication at the front of The Malayan Trilogy: To All Malaysians. And I thought I'd throw in a picture of me as cikgu at Malay College with my boys in 1988. I'm sure you can find me!

I still have every hope that we can celebrate the anniversary of the trilogy and do something good for readers and for the boys of Malay College ... once the book is declared 'unrestricted' (as commonm sense dictates it should be) and the MCOBA (Malay College Old Boys Association) make a decision about what it is they want to do.

Thanks, Zedeck for being the kind of bullying, pain in the arse kind of editor that gets a much better piece of work out of me. (But I told Zedeck I'd put him in my suitcase and take him back to the UK with me if I get deported!)

I was asked to write an article on banned and restricted books for MPH's Quill, but it was deemed "too sensitive" for publication when I sent it in, (although there was nothing in it that isn't in the public domain already, with just a soupçon of opinion added). Which I understand, particularly when there is going to be a pic of the PM on the cover. Still ... it feels funny to have an article on banned books ... in a sense banned!

Zedeck's editorial this month focuses on the happy ressurgence of things literary in KL.

Celebrating Voices

The second of Saturday's literary events was of course, "Readings" at Seksan's. And for me the event was all about ... what is an authentic Malaysian voice?

Yang-May Ooi read first, and poor thing had to compete a little against the rain. Thank goodness we're amplified now.

She decided to use her slot for an experiment. She had brought along a passage from the novel she is currently working on, Tianming Traviata, and she read the same piece written in two slightly different voices. The first very standard English, the second in identifiably Malaysian English. I enjoyed both versions, though the second sounded more natural to me and all but Eric Forbes seemed to agree when we took a vote afterwards.

I told Yang-May later that Shirley Lim had talked about having the same problem when she wrote Sister Swing, and it really is a big deal for local writers. (I do so badly want to write at length on this but haven't yet got round to it.)

Talking about capturing voice, Datuk Shan does a great job of getting Indian voices down to the page and playing with them for comic effect as in the story about Mrs. Sarjit Singh getting teased for her terrible mispronunciations.

Zhang Su Li read us several appetite-whetting short pieces from her travel book A Backpack and a Bit of Luck. I loved the first piece she read about the time she worked in an opticians in Britain and gave a lecture to an old man about the correct way to put on glasses - only to realise that he only had one hand having lost the other in the war. This being Britain, a cup of tea while he told his story put things right. Su Li managed a very creditable northern accent!

Patricia Low is a very talented young lady. My first encounter with her work was with The Oral Stage's Rojak, last year. Two of my favourite pieces were penned by her and she was one of the directors. I sadly missed TOS second production, 59 Minutes, so it was nice that Pat read us a monologue from it - a wonderfully funny satire about the building of a durian tower in a shopping mall. But as I say, Malaysia constantly satirises itself! The scary thing about the piece was that it all seemed just too possible!

I loved the natural way that the voice in the story moved between English and Malay ... this is the reality of voice in the local context, the constant dipping between languages. For convenience. For emphasis. For humour.

Haris Zalkapli (and now I have his name spelt right!) writes columns on pop culture and politics and the interface between. I knew nothing about him before the reading since I had enlisted Raja Ahmad's help in finding good Malay writers, and I am very happy to have "discovered" Haris. He's clearly a writer who has found his niche - his pieces are entertaining and the arguments nicely developed. He read two columns The Stones and the Great Firewall, about The Rolling Stones tour of China and A Lesson in Coolness about Condoleza Rice and other politicians employing pop culture as a campaigning tool.

This was the second time that Eileen Lui has read at "Readings". Her stories have appeared in Silverfish collections, including the book I edited, Collateral Damage. She read a moving piece about a friendship ... which should have been more than a friendship ... about the best friends who became "better friends", but never quite made the transition to becoming lovers.

Thank goodness not everyone is like this couple, or Eileen would be out of a day-job!

Was very happy to see poet Wong Phui Nam in the audience and I think he was very pleased to see so many people interested in writing. I have invited him to read next time!

Many thanks (and you know the litany by now!) all who read and all who turned up to support them. To Seksan for the space. To La Bodega for the lovely wines. To Reza for help with the sound. To all who helped get set up and to Zedeck for washing glasses. Sorry I was so bossy.

I've decided not to hold "Readings" next month as the KL Litfest is on at the end of March and it's better that everyone supports that. But watch this space for April announcements.

Silencing Cyberspace

Here's a talk I'd love to go to if I didn't have to be somewhere else Tuesday night. I hope that it gets written up in detail on the blogs. I took this from Jeff's blog in the passed on passed on nature of internet things.

SILENCING CYBERSPACE - THE FINAL FRONTIER?

Date: 6 February2007 (Tuesday)
Time: 7.30 pm
Venue: KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall

Speakers:

* Mr Yeo Yang Poh, President of the Malaysian Bar Council
* Mr Jeff Ooi, Pioneer Malaysian Blogger
* Ms Sonia Randhawa, Executive Director, Centre for Independent Journalism
* Mr Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader
* Mr Lim Guan Eng, Secretary-General of DAP

As of today, we have the Printing and Publications Act 1984 which provides that it is a criminal offense to possess or use a printing press without a licence granted by the Internal Security Minister. The Minister is given "absolute discretion" in the granting and revocation of licences, which is required to be renewed on a yearly basis.

We do not require such an Act to govern us in the cyberspace. The Bill of Guarantees of the Multimedia Super Corridor project assures us, Malaysians, and the world that there will be no censorship of the Internet.

Whatever your take on the case at hand (the NST v. Jeff and Rocky Bru) the debate that is thrown up is vitally important, and freedom of speech must be safeguarded.

The Centre for Independent Journalism meanwhile offers a downloadable copy of a Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents produced by Reporters Without Borders which should be compulsory reading for all who venture online.

As the blurb says:

Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.

Zedeck Siew, Kakiseni editor, echoes my sentiments too when he writes:

Ahirudin and Jeff Ooi (of Screenshots, who is also being sued) are de facto public intellectuals, providing commentary on Malaysian issues for the Greater Good; this censure -- considering the NSTP has a plethora of alternative actions to debunk Rocky and Jeff’s opinions, avenues that would not stink of hammer-headed censorship -- is like impaling someone just to improve his posture. A government sanctioned sula, too. Our Prime Minister: “They cannot hope to cover themselves or hide from the laws.” We thought we were done with the Middle Ages.

My apologies for not giving you your fix of biblionews earlier in the day - my internet connection is still giving me big problems, but should be fixed tomorrow.

Saturday in Photos

Saturday was every bit as hectic as I knew it would be.

First, there was MPH Writers' Circle where Puan Hafizah of The National Library (pictured above with her colleague Pn. Zalina) told us all about how ISBN numbers work and why we need them for our books and how to get them. She also introduced us to the 13 digit EAN numbering system which will be introduced next year. There was an interesting discussion afterwards about the work of the National Library and its role in promoting local writers and developing libraries in the rural areas.

Local writer Lynette Kwan (right) had some great news to share. After taking part in the first Writers' Circle meeting last year, she was so enthused that she went home and wrote a collection of short stories, found an agent in Singapore (apparently the one and only) and soon had four publishers competing for the right to put her work into print. Dark City, her book of tales with Dahlesque twists in the end is called , is written under her pen name Xeus, and some of the stories are being filmed for Singaporean television. Lynette is a doctor by day and fits writing into a very busy schedule.




I had a quick nosey around the new 1 Utama branch of Pay Less (sorry MPH!) and bought a couple more volumes of Best American Short Stories. Had lunch and a long chat about writing with a friend from the Writer's Circle, Chris, and then drove to Bangsar for the readings at Sek Sen's place.

Bernice (left) kicked the event off with a touching tribute to Pramoedya.






Kam Raslan's (right) first novel is being published soon by Marshall Cavendish in Singapore ... and you may not have realised it, but you've probably being reading it already if you read Off the Edge each month. Yes, that's right, you thought it was just a column written by an codger reminiscing about the good old days days ... Am so happy for him!








Zedeck read too (left) ....
















... so did Bernice's CENFAD student Farid Ramlee who can draw on a family history populated by British, Chinese and Malay forebears for his fiction. (Lainie was supposed to read but was sick, so Soefira Jaafar read her piece). ...









... The lovely Ruhayat X read a deliciously humourous piece which had everyone laughing ...

... Dina Zaman read pieces from her I Am Muslim column. I took a beautiful picture of her (which doesn't make her look like a chipmonk!) but we both agreed that I shouldn't post it up because of the moronic sicko who took the photo of her from my blog to post online advertisements which has her being bombarded with lewd SMSes (she showed me) and emails. What exactly is it about her that provokes this gonk?

The third and final port of call was Silverfish and I got there with Saras and Diana just as the event ended. Apparently Raman decided against a conventional reading and Robert Raymer was talking about how the stories in his collection came to be written ...

Rounded off the day with a nice cold beer with Saras, overjoyed because my long-term writing buddy has a story in the next Silverfish collection!!!

It was a really good day with so many reasons to be hopeful for local writing.

Brown Sugar and Special Branch

Went along to the readings at Jalan Tempinis 1 yesterday afternoon. People write, must support, what. Though was not in the mood to sit and listen because was in a big strop with my other half who started World War Three because we were out of brown sugar (white doesn't count apparently).

A bit disappointed about changes to the advertised programme, and the crowd that showed up ... didn't exactly amount to a crowd despite bernice's exhortation to "datang beramai-ramai" .... there were about 15 people, and three of them Raja Ahmad's kids.

Raja Ahmad read first. I have a running joke with him because I bump into him all the time, at every reading and literary event. "You still following me around?" I say "We just can't go on meeting like this." But it's great to see a writer who supports other writers to this extent.

I was glad that Raja Ahmad told me that he is a poet, that first time we met at a Darling Muse, because he looks the part with his long hair and thoughtful expression.



He read several of his poems including one called membaca buku di kinokuniya - a nice piece of free advertising for Kino! I like the way the poem ends:

if everybody is silent
what kind of society
is this

Quite.

I bought his collection of poetry Manyarung Jiwa, a beautifully produced book of uncluttered layout and quality paper. I'm so glad that it is a bi-lingual edition so that I am not going to miss anything.

Raja Ahmad had his daughter read an extract from his work in progress, a novel written in English.

Then some of the kutu-kutu guys read. RuhayatX gave us Anak Kepala Anjing; Natasha "champion blogger of the Neohikayat website" read Dhoji's Tsunami; Irman read a piece by Danny Lim; Nizam Zakaria read his Penunggu Malam. Then Abror Rivai, a young poet who has been writing for about a year read a few poems, and the very encouraging Bernice insisted on reading a few more herself.

I can't give you any stunning critical insights into the texts ... I really have to get my brain into gear to begin reading again in Malay ... And I'm a much better listener when my head is not full of visions of brown sugar and deeply-disappointed-in-me husband.

Nizam wins my prize for the most sartorially elegant performer of the day. His t-shirt had a picture of fingers held up in a victory sign (was it? or?) outlined in flashing bands of neon. It was not magic as some had thought, Nizam showed me the battery pack. (Haven't seen any piggy t-shirts for a while, which seemed to be de rigeur garb for those who wanted to project an image of being both creatif and alternatif in the Darling Muse days.)

Listened into a conversation between some of the Wilayah Kutu-kutu, debating whether or not there had been Special Branch guys at the launch at Silverfish and if there had been quite what it implied. Whilst not exactly the Stasi, the thought of Special Branch opening a file on their subversives strikes a certain amount of terror particularly as ther ISA means that dissenting voices can be disappeared for quite a while.

Perhaps it's all paranoia? Those Special Branch guys don't actually need to show up in a physical sense to show up in your psyche.

Perhaps too, there's a vicarious thrill to be gained from courting the possibility?

Oh yes, and the other big news of the day was that Zedeck has had a haircut. And now you can actually see that he has eyes.

A Surfeit of Readings

Brain got sozzled with other people's words yesterday p.m.

The Darling Muse gig was on. Kam Raslan was first up, reading more of his novel about his datuk. A line I laughed at: "England when it was still part of the Malaysian Empire. ... London was our reward."

Nizam had his Kisah Dua Wanita performed by three friends. Bless his heart, he'd read in my blog that this hopeless Mat Salleh isn't the best at following spoken Malay and had printed off the text in a little booklet. It made understanding much easier, particularly as the piece was written in Kelantanese dialect. (Love the music of it.)

Zedeck looked all bashful when you could see his face at all, hidden beneath a cascade of hair. (He looked a bit like that ghost in The Ring.) He ummed and erred and fidgeted with his notebook annoyingly - just like an unwilling kid forced to read out something in front of the class, dragging his feet every inch of the way. And a writer should never rubbish his own work before he reads! Once he got going he was fine, and the piece entertaining and well observed.

Bernice read a heartfelt piece she'd written about three years ago about the pains of being a mother and the lost rebelliousness of youth. She is working on a one-woman show based around this material.

After a short break Rahmat was up. His dreadlocked hair was like a piece of installation art, like gnarled branches of a tree, and into it he'd woven a bright red gerbera flower from one of the flower arrangements. His t-shirt had a picture of a couple of stylised piggies for the sake of true rebellion. He'd been just a little too much into the generously donated La Bodega wine, I think. His first "piece" I'd call a "sound poem" - was it scripted or just improvised on the spot? Then he read (with plenty of outrage) a psychiatrist's letter about his purported "dadah addiction" as if it was a poem (he was arrested for possession of cannabis).

A performance artist and poet, Arahmaini, read next. (She's currently doing an artist's residence at Rimbun Dahan.) I understood her first poem about wanting to be a prophet but being told by her father that she could not be one because she is a woman. There was a longer passionate piece, conplete with ghostly sound effects about her father, a refuse collector. Didn't understand this one. Nor why she poured and drank a glass of whisky and then smashed the glass on the floor with the final words.

But it doesn't matter if I don't understand the readings in Malay. It's great that the two languages are side by side. That writers make one community.

Later in the evening went to a reading at Maya gallery on Telawi 3 (the galleries are the lit. places!). I was due to interview poet Nathaniel Tarn who was stopping in KL briefly on his way to Sarawak with his wife. Shall post up the article I'm writing after it appears in next Sunday's Starmag.

More than deserved my pint of of Kilkenny at Finnegan's afterwards - eating all those words makes you thirsty.