More Awang Goneng

I tried to capture the rhythm of the language, the lifestyle we had back then. Writing the blog liberated me from my rigid, structured background as a journalist. I was always neurotic about writing the first paragraph! But the blog was free-flow. I wasn’t writing for anyone; I was essentially writing for myself. I could write whenever I wanted.

Awang Goneng tells fellow Terengganu-ite Dina Zaman in Starmag today. It's a very nice piece but how I wish more space had been given for it. (And I wish it hadn't been padded out with words Dina did not write!

My review of Growing up in Trengganu which I was asked weeks ago to write to go with her article, doesn't appear. Perhaps by now with so much publicity for the book already in the other newspapers, it has rather timed out.

Having to stick to the meager word limit means that all almost the examples I so wanted to include had to be cut out (making it a piece that I am less than satisfied with myself).

Here 'tis though, for your eyes only:

There is a delicious irony about the fact that a book as distilled from memory and marinated in the rich spice of nostalgia as Awang Goneng’s Growing up in Trengganu actually owes its existence to the electronic media. For this is one of Malaysia’s first “blooks” (as books based on a blogs or websites are known).

Awang Goneng is actually the nick of London-based veteran journalist Wan Ahmad Hulaimi who began Kecek-Kecek (which means “just chatting” in the dialect of Terengganu) as a way of recording what his childhood was like for his children who have grown up in Britain. The blog (which can still be read online at http://k ecek-kecek.blogspot.com) would probably have remained online had it not been for proactive publisher Philip Tatham of Singapore-based Monsoon Books who contacted Hulaimi and asked him whether he thought there was a book there.

There was. And while the material has been re-editing and reorganized for print, the book retains many of the characteristics of the blog and I’d say is enhanced by this, rather than otherwise.

Just as the online reader drops by a blog casually and may read posts out of sequence, this is a book that can be dipped into at any point since each short piece is self-contained and satisfying, often flowing in stream-of-consciousness style from a thought or a photograph. This is not a book to be hurried through, but rather sipped slowly and relished.

Interaction with readers plays a very important part in shaping a blog, and Pak Awang (for so I shall call him) soon acquired a following of readers whom he credits with filling in gaps in his own recollection.

Not that he seems to have too many of those, for although he protests at one point that “The light of the present has limited recall when you open the door slightly to the dark back room of your past”, what amazes the reader is the detail in which he is able to render each scene, bringing vividly alive the sights, scents and tastes of his childhood.

Whether he’s describing listening to storyteller by lamplight, talking about how Trengganu-ites coped with the monsoon season, letting us in on the secrets of making the infamous anchovy sauce budu, ruminating on the role of chickens in kampong society, or describing a family Hari Raya, Awang Goneng proves himself an erudite and gently humourous companion, weaving personal recollection into the rich tapestry of everyday life of Terengganu of the period.

It is, though, the recollections of ordinary people, shopkeepers, hawkers, kampong folk, imams and teachers, each of them described with respect and love, none of them are too humble to be noticed, that most strikes a chord.

Another of the great delights of the book is the insights it gives into the “Trengganu speak”, a dialect (which I’ve always found impenetrable and mysterious) which has a word for everything, for “There are as many ways to speak as there are chairs for cats to scratch” as Pak Awang says.

While Growing Up in Trengganu is a book which is intensely personal it is also a stunning cultural record of a time and place greatly changed, and not necessarily improved, by “progress”. The crowds flocking to the launch of the book in Kuala Terengganu and to author events in KL have clearly taken the book and its author to their hearts. The book is now into its second reprint, just a few weeks after publication.

That’s not bad going for a writer who hadn’t even thought about making a book from his blog!

I nicked the lovely photo above from Kak Teh's blog. It shows Awang Goneng with the son of one of his old teachers.

Kak Teh wasn't only Awang Goneng's bag carrier on their recent trip back to Malaysia, she also put together a documentary account for RTM's Galeri Perdana. The first part of her Jejak Awang Goneng is here**, and even if you don't understand the Malay, it gives a wonderful flavour of the place and personalities the book is based on, and the sound of the dialect:


*And I wish it hadn't been padded out with a paragraph Dina did not write! There has to be some integrity with what material goes out in your name, doesn't there?
**The links to other parts of the programme can be found on Kak Teh's blog and on Youtube.

I nicked the lovely photo above from Kak Teh's blog. It shows Awang Goneng with the son of one of his old teachers.

The Awang Goneng Roadshow!

Awang Goneng (Wan Ahmad Hulaimi) is a writer very much in demand and working tirelessly to promote Growing Up in Terengganu.

Firdaus sent me this link to pictures and a video of his session at the International Islamic University.

His wife Kak Teh describes how Huliami was asked by the Chief Minister of Terengganu to speak at an event called Sembang-sembang Awang Goneng, and how:

... when he spoke about the need to keep the people, the soul of the city, in the city, to grow with the development, he got a bit emotional and couldn’t speak for a while.

If you have hitherto missed Awang Goneng, you can catch up with him at MPH Midvalley on Sunday 20th Jan, 3-4 pm.

Was delighted to find this short video clip of Hulaimi singing at the reading at Seksan's. This is a moment of pure magic. Thanks so much to "Akarimomar" for uploading it.


(Pic nicked from Kak Teh's blog.)

Readings Gets Respectable ... Well Almost

Readings@Seksan's drew its biggest ever crowd this Saturday and it was standing room only! And the audience seemed a lot more ... *cough cough* respectable than our usual boho-chic crowd. (Although KG in his shorts and orange hair, I think tried to even up the balance.) We had *gasp* a politician ... and blow me down, even our national laureate, A . Samad Said in the audience!

I'd like to think exponential increase in numbers was due to my charm and personality, but I rather think that it all had something to do with Awang Goneng bringing his fan club along.

There was definitely an east coast theme to the afternoon, with the first of our Terengganu-ites Dina Zaman kicking the afternoon off with extracts from her short stories, The King of the Sea and a new piece (I think) called Nightwatch. She's sitting on such good material (I know because I've read some of it) and I really hope that it all gets collected into a book before too long. (Nag nag, Dina!)

Patrick Teoh, actor and radio personality (and much more) read a couple of his Teohlogy columns from Off the Edge so beautifully that it's no wonder that he's been dubbed "the voice of Malaysia". The crowd just loved his-tell-it-like-it-is critiques of Malaysian society and politics. You can catch up with Patrick on his blog Niamah!!! (a useful Cantonese swear word!).

We had a very extended break (I was waiting and waiting for the call to prayers from the Bangsar mosque, as we can't read through it ... and it caught me out yet again.)

I was going to leave Awang Goneng (the crowd puller!) until nearer the end of the afternoon, but the presence of a photographer from the Star who had to leave early forced some last minute rescheduling.

Awang Goneng (Wan Ahmad Hulaimi) began by telling us how he began blogging about his childhood in Terengganu for his children who had never lived in Malaysia. He talked about how rhythm is important to his writing (something that has struck me reading Growing Up in Trengganu*) and before he read from the book, he sang some of the songs and nasyids that he remembered from his childhood days which had helped to develop that sense. (My goodness, it was so beautiful!)

The fact that so many people turned up to the launch in Kuala Terengganu, the fact that so many people turned up today, shows just how deep a chord the book has touched. The book about Hulaimi's childhood becomes a book about other childhoods as well.

It was lovely too to see Hulaimi's wife, my friend Zahara Othman who blogs as Kak Teh.

M.K. Ajay is an Indian expatriate who has been working as the director of an American company here for the past three years. He has published a collection of short stories and two books of poems, including his recent collection Sweetness of Salt, which was released last month by Plain View Press in Austin, Texas. Ajay read several poems including Shadow that Became Rains, Definitions (and I was very taken with the image of the Petronas Twin towers as a honeycomb), Dialogue and Curry Leaves.

I will be writing more about Ajay and his book soon.

The other east coast writer (from Kuantan) was our bad boy blogger (or rather ex-blogger since he's taken his posts down and is now concentrating on other projects including film making). Amir Hafizi can always be relied upon to lower the tone. I issued a health warning before he began so that anyone with delicate sensitivities or weak hearts could leave. And bless him, he was on true Malay Male form, reading a very funny piece he'd written while drunk the night before about how he wants to get paid for sex** ... but realising first he had to get into shape had gone to sign up with California Fitness, and then of course there's the signing up process to deal with and the communication gap with the girls on the front desk!

Sadly, Shinji Moriwake didn't manage to make the event (his band had a gig at Central Market and he sms-ed to say he wouldn't be free), but I do hope that he can make it another time. (I quite fancy having a hip-hop influenced Readings ...).

Anyway, after the event people partied on and Awang Goneng signed books which were snapped up incredibly quickly. (Look how many this lady is buying!).

Thanks to Seksan, as always, for the beautiful space.

(And in case you're wondering, the artist whose work provided the backdrop for this month's event is Chu Yuan, and you can read all about her in today's Metro section of the Star.)

Thanks to all who read and all who came and cheered them on.

Thanks to Shahnim for the blog poster. (Irman's turn next month since he's so picky about fonts.)

Thanks to Eugene and Leon who washed all the glasses and cleared up.

Friends who stayed back for a chat afterwards ... and Reza had the best Christmas hat (though Adrianna Noordin came a very close second).

A very Happy New Year to you all!!!!

*By the way this is an older spelling of the state now known as Terengganu.
** If there are any takers who find him via this blog, you can pay me a small commission!


Postscript:

Nice write up on Hic Sunt Dracones blog. Manal enjoys meeting the writers. Kak Teh gives us a charming behind the scenes glimpse of what it takes to be Pak Awang's manager!

Sufian has great pictures as usual, and Firdaus adds more here.

Awang Goneng Goes Back to His (Bookish) Roots

The pseudonym apparently means "mischievous local boy" but for anyone still not sure who Awang Goneng, the author of Growing Up in Trengganu is ...

... he's actually veteran journalist Wan Ahmad Hulaimi, the blogger behind Kecek-Kecek, and husband of another very well loved blogger, KakTeh aka Zahara Othman.

And, of course, he's reading tomorrow at Seksan's.

I'm a little shamefaced that I haven't written anything about the book yet, but this is because 1) I'm reviewing it for Starmag and 2) this beautiful book is just to special to hurry without savouring each short chapter fully. (I am a fair way through it though.)

The picture from the Star shows the book launch in Kuala Terengganu on Tuesday, at the Alam Akademik bookshop where he once bought his first books and his father bought his kitabs (religious books).

The book is already doing very well and is going into a second-print run of 3,000 books.

Blogs Help Develop Writers

People say lots of things about bloggers, most of them uncomplimentary, but I’m very upset about that. ... Blogs are very special tools for honing your writing skills or to get you started on writing, and I used my blog as my notebook, for rough notes which would one day form the substance for this book.

Wan Ahmad Hulaimi a.k.a. Awang Goneng is interviewed by Meera Murugesan in today's Malay Mail about the writing of nation-wide bestseller Growing up in Terengganu.

Bloggers in Malaysia have suffered every kind of insult (what were we called? liars? monkeys?* bored housewives?) and it's lovely to see someone provide the evidence for the likes of Tourism minister Tunku Adnan that blogs are a very positive force, which the government should be supporting and embracing rather than denigrating.

Pak Awang says that the most important lesson about writing he's learning is this:

Do not worry about what you’re writing. Do the best you can at that moment. Go on with it and then come back to it if you have a fresher insight.

On the local literary scene he says that many local authors rarely, if ever, get support despite their talent:

I blame the local infrastructure, the publishers, distributors and editors for not promoting local books. Many good local writers are being ignored. They’re simply not being given the exposure they deserve and yet, when such authors thrive overseas, we want to hail them back and claim them as our own. There’s something wrong here and those responsible have a lot to answer for.

I missed the links to last week's coverage of the book launch in the New Straits Times, so here's Su Aziz's very nice piece.

You're feeling like a superstar yet, Pak Awang?

*It's worth noting that Hulaimi's wife, Zahara Othman (who blogs as Kak Teh) was singled out by Khairy Jamalludin as one of the monkeys. It shows how much (or rather how little) not-too-clued up son-in-law-in -waiting actually understands about blogs and the people who write them.

** Hulaimi was quite amused by the fact that one politician who has been most vociferous in his condemnation of bloggers was right at the front of the queue to get his copy of GUiT signed at the launch!

Trengganu - Blooked!

I predicted way back that with some of the freshest, most interesting Malaysian writing emerging on the blogs, and it was only a matter of time before publishers noticed.

Biggest congratulations to Awang Goneng whose forthcoming Growing Up in Trengganu (due to be released in a couple of weeks) is Malaysia's first blook (book based on a blog). Congrats to to Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books in Singapore for being so proactive and not waiting for printed manuscripts to hit his desk.

Pak Awang writes:

The book has been my top secret project this year, and even my better half Kak Teh only knew about it when the editing work was nearly done. My regular readers will know that Growing Up has been a regular and eccentric feature in my blog and if numbers are to be believed, the series has gone through many hundred thousand parts. But fear not, it is not coming out in many volumes but in just one small collection with cover design by a talented lady in Ireland, published by a small but reputable (and no doubt talented) publishing house in Singapore, and a cartoon of me on the writer's bio page was drawn by a talented but no small cartoonist called Lat; and it is even embellished with photographs sent in by readers from as far away as New York and Canada. I am, needless to say, over the moon.

The idea of Growing Up in Trengganu being snuggled between covers was one that never really seriously crossed my mind, though I did — once or twice, in moments of fanciful thought — toy with publishing it myself. And then Monsoon books came in with an email asking if there's a book there: and of course there was, and so it now is.

And I can't wait to have a copy.

Postscript:

Cheryl Hagedorn of the excellent blog Blooking Central has put up an excellent post about this book/blook. Amazing that such a buzz is created even before the book is out.

Why You Should Pirate Your Writing

Reading a new book is like checking in to a cheap hotel in a foreign city: you plan to spend a lot of time in there, but have no real idea how happy you will be until you've staked your money. Unlike music (which you can hear on the radio or at your friend's house) or even the movies (where you often see a trailer), it's often difficult to tell if you are going to like a new book unless you are lucky enough have the time to sit in a bookshop and read a chapter or two first.

Sean Dodson on the Guardian blog puts forward an excellent case for authors giving away digital copies of their work. He talks about how Paul Coelho* sent sales figures stratospheric by indulging in a little "self-piracy", setting up a blog, Pirate Coelho, with links to sites where readers could download his stuff for free.

Another example Dodson mentions is that of Canadian science-fiction writer Cory Doctorow who:

... has circulated tens of thousands of electronic editions of his novels and short stories, and it has helped to send his sales soaring ...

Well, closer to home, we know that although Awang Goneng's content is all up on his blog for us to read for free, the print book is seeing excellent sales.

There's something to be learned here, for sure.

*Incidentally, like Dodson, I couldn't finish The Alchemist and gave my copy away. All that pre-digested wisdom stuck in my throat.

Postscript:

Cerri Radford on the Telegraph blog writes about the rampant online-ness of Paul Coelho who blogs, Flickrs and Facebooks:

Which is a wonderful phenomenon, of course. But of all the authors in the world to want to interact with us, did it have to be this one?

2007 in Reading

Trying to assign bestness to great books is really very hard when they give you such different experiences.

But drumrolls please, for it's time for the Bibs awards for 2007. In a year of solidly reading good stuff, which books made the biggest impression on me?

Okay, first the nominees (with links to my reviews or previous posts):

Am so glad I made it through the Booker shortlist, even if not entirely the longlist. Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, Anne Enright's The Gathering, Nicola Barker's Darkmans, Indra Sinha's Animal's People and Lloyd Jones Mr. Pip I thought were all very worthy contenders. Enright, yes, deserved her win.

I interviewed Canadian author Camilla Gibb when she came to the KL Literary festival in March which meant reading all her novels in rapid succession. (Not an arduous task at all!) Sweetness in the Belly, was for me is one of the most powerful and moving books of the year.

I wimped out a bit on the TBR challenge I blithely undertook at the beginning of the year and managed only 3 of the 12 books on my list. (I am finding that between me and the books I really want to read, there are a whole lot of books I have to read for reviews and articles and because a friend has written them.) But the three books I did read, Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth, Money by Martin Amis and William Boyd's Brazzaville Beach were all excellent.

(These are of course books I should have tackled before, but I isolated myself in Nigeria and small town Malaysia in the 1980's and have big gaps in my reading. But I'm kicking myself - how could I have not read any William Boyd before?)

In 2007 Malaysian writing in English proved itself world class once again, with Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain - a book I both loved and felt extremely proud of on the Booker longlist.

At home Kam Raslan with his Confessions of an Old Boy showed us all that not only can local fiction be of an excellent standard, but that it can also hit best seller lists. (I feel like cheering very very loudly at this point, but will restrain myself and just say more please, Kam!)

The other publication of local fiction I want to cheer for is Silverfish New Writing 6, in which the standard of the stories, many of them by first time writers, was very high indeed thanks to editor Dipika Mukherjee who made excellent choices.

My favourite non-fiction read by far was Alan Weisman's The World Without Us which imagines what would happen to planet Earth if all the human beings were just spirited off elsewhere. It was a real page-turner. I also really enjoyed Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness which, like all good popular science books was authoritative and extremely readable even for a non-scientist like me.

The local non-fiction I enjoyed most was Awang Goneng's gentle memoir Growing Up in Trengganu, followed by Dina Zaman's I Am Muslim and Antares' Tanah Tujuh.

My favourite coffee-table book was Malaysians by Steven V. Lee and Haliza Hashim-Doyle. (There are probably others I would love just as much but haven't managed to buy yet!)

Another drumroll please as I open the envelope:

And the 2007 Golden Bibs award goes to ...... The Road!

I can't get Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic (and post-apostrophic?) novel out of my head. The vision of the last remaining love and tenderness in a destroyed world still haunts me, and it should be compulsory reading for every world leader.

So what books knocked your socks off in 2007, and which would you give your award to?

Incidentally, I very much enjoyed reading this best of 2007 books post on Eyeris' blog.

Monsoon Season

Publisher Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books in Singapore is steadily building up a very interesting list of publications that includes fiction, non-fiction, memoir, stirring tales of real-life adventure, accounts of historical interest ... and even erotica!

He has been very kind sending me copies of his latest publications. The latest parcel contained a copy of Awang Goneng's Growing Up in Trengganu which I'm currently enjoying and will blog about very soon (and do come and meet the author next Saturday at Seksan's!) and three other books which look rather good:

First a true life adventure - The Boat by Walter Gibson:

In 1942 a ship carrying 500 escapees from Japanese-occupied Singapore set sail from Padang for Ceylon. Halfway to safety she was torpedoed and sank. Amidst the horror and confusion, only one lifeboat was launched—a lifeboat built to carry twenty-eight but to which 135 souls now looked to for salvation. For twenty-six days she drifted across the Indian Ocean. For twenty-six days, cannibalism, murder, heroism and self-sacrifice drifted with her. When the lifeboat finally ran aground on the island of Sipora, off Sumatra, only four had survived: two Javanese seamen, a Chinese girl, Doris Lim, and Walter Gibson of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The Boat is Walter Gibson's true account of that horrific event. He captures vividly the mental trauma, the physical pain, the decision to kill or be killed but above all, the determination not to die.

Then there's Suchen Christine Lim's new collection of short fiction The Lies that Build a Marriage:

A mother finds out her son is gay; a daughter finds out her two mothers are lesbians; a niece stumbles upon the body of her dead uncle dressed in his wife's sarong kebaya; and an old man's nascent feelings for a Filipino maid lead him back to his suppressed art.

The Lies That Build A Marriage, Suchen Christine Lim's short stories of the unsung, unsaid and uncelebrated in Singapore, delve beneath the sunlit island's prosperity and coded decorum. Her characters chip away prejudice and sculpt it into acceptance of the other.

And then there's Indiscreet Memories: 1901 Singapore Through the Eyes of a Colonial Englishman:

Stepping off the SS Hamburg on a moonlit night in January 1901, Edwin A. Brown knew little about his new home—the Straits Settlement of Singapore. Through diary extracts and personal memories, this young Englishman brings to life characters and events in a country few would recognise today. Life for the early settlers was always eventful. Entertainment came in the form of comic operas, visiting circuses, balls at Government House and socialising at the Tingel Tangel dance hall. There were rickshaw strikes, sightings of a sea serpent in the Singapore harbour, Sunday morning horse rides around the Settlement and tigers causing havoc in Chinatown. From the death of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward to the decision by Straits-born Chinese to discard their towchang (queues), we come to understand how historical events shaped and affected the society of the day. Indiscreet Memories is one man's true account of life in Singapore as it was over a hundred years ago.

And here's some good news from Philip for all those who like cheap books and free stuff:

Cheapies: We're offering 30% off all books (for the next few months) to celebrate our new website. The may not be of much interest to Malaysians since we already discount our books for the price-conscious Malaysian market but it's a great bargain for your readers living outside Malaysia. Here.

Freebies: We're offering free books every month! This month we're giving away copies of Nigel Barley's "Rogue Raider". Here.

It's all good news.

Monsoon Making Waves in Local Publishing

It was so good to see Singaporean-based publisher Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books in the Telegraph yesterday talking about his ambition to "put South East Asia at the heart of the literary map".

The piece by Rosie Milne profiles Tatham, a British expat who studied South-East Asia Studies at Hull and then moved to Malaysia and spent a decade in publishing before moving to Singapore in 2004 to set up his company. Monsoon has really taken off, finishing 2007 with top ten bestsellers in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

(The Malaysian hit of course was the wonderful Growing Up in Terengganu by Awang Goneng.)

Some of the problems Philip is working to solve :

Sorting out distribution was a big problem, but I think we've cracked that one now ... We also face constant problems getting paid in some of our smaller markets - getting money out of the Philippines is an ongoing battle. It's also a struggle to get agents to take us seriously. There are very few agents working in Asia, and agents in London and New York as yet seem reluctant to show us manuscripts. That should change, as we become more established.

Longlist for the Poppies 2009

Popular Bookstores are running their Reader's Choice (for books in English) and Anugerah Pilihan Pembaca (for books in Malay) awards again this year. Kimmy of Popular was kind enough to send me a copy of the lists of nominees (based, I believe on sales instore) so I guess I have the scoop before the newspapers!

I will blog the Readers Choice award first, and here's the list which I have subdivided into categories, although there is just one overall prize. (Wouldn't it be nice to have more, so that we could celebrate different categories?) *

Fiction (Novels/Novellas) :

Preeta Samarasan - Evening is the Whole Day
Tunku Halim - Juriah's Song
Brian Gomez - Devil's Place
Tan Twan Eng - The Gift of Rain
Kuan Guat Choo - Mouse Clutching Winter Melon
Khoo Kheng-Hor - Nanyang : The Lure of Southern China to Lands of Opportunity and Danger

Fiction (Short Stories) :

Wena Poon - Lions in Winter
Robert Raymer - Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Matthew Thomas - Tales from the Court and other Stories

Non-Fiction :

Yvonne Lee - Vanity Drive: The Vagaries of Women's Vanity
Sheik Mustapha Shukor Al-Masrie - Reach for the Stars
Adeline Loh - Peeing in the Bush
Adibah Amin - Glimpses : Cameos of Malaysian Lives
Paddy Bowie - Datuk Teh Hong Pow : Banking Thoroughbred
Kee Thuan Chye : March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up
Tun Mahathir & Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad - Dr. Mahathir's Letters to World Leaders
Rustam A. Sani - Failed Nation? Concerns of a Malaysian Nationalist
Amir Muhammad - New Malaysian Essays 1
Awang Goneng - Growing Up in Terengganu

In case you're wondering, this year, unlike last, overseas published Malaysian authors have been included provided that their books were in mass market paperback during the qualifying period. Thus Chiew-Siah Tei's Little Hut of Leaping Fishes is expected to be on next year's list. Shih-Li Kow's collection of short stories, Ripples, wasn't published in time to qualify for this year's list but should make it for next.

It's a shame isn't it there is only one prize, with so much of interest on the list and so much diversity!

We have authors who have achieved acclaim for their work overseas and who have each been nominated for one the world's most prestigious literary prizes (Tan Twan Eng - Booker, Preeta Samarasan - Orange).

We have one Singaporean author (Wena Poon) eligible because she was published in Malaysia.

We have last year's winner Adibah Amin, coming back for another bite of the cherry.

We have one former prime minister.

We have two authors who have passed away since their books were written - Rustam A. Sani and Sheik Mustapha Shukor Al-Masrie who wrote about his brother Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha, Malaysia's first "astronaut" and died just one day before his brother landed from his voyage to the international space station.

Voting will be once again via the Star's Reads Monthly Supplement (though I'm not sure when that will be). The bookstore is organising promotions of the books and from June onwards, customers that visit POPULAR outlets will get 20% discount when they buy any of the nominated books. The winner will be announced at Bookfest @ Malaysia 2009.

Yes, it is a popularity contest and yes, in that sense it cannot be considered a serious literary award.

But it does shine the spotlight on local authors and create some conversation about their books, which cannot be at all a bad thing.

Congrats to all the listed authors and their publishers.

Postscript :

Sorry for misleading info. There are separate prizes for fiction and non-fiction, and three prizes in each category - which means 6 winners. Whee!!

Postscript 2 :

The question of whether Khoo Kheng-Hor's book is fiction or non-fiction comes up in the comments to this post. Shirley Ng of MPH forwarded me an interesting note about this from Khoo herself who says :

... my case stories from China were based on what my aunts told me about my grand-father ... If you want to categorize it under non-fiction then it is not entirely true. If it is fiction then it is not entirely true too. So what shall we call it?

I didn't notice on the initial list but Yvonne Lee's Vanity Drive has been categorised as fiction. Hmmm ... creative non-fiction okay, but ....

Why Language is Important

We live in a world now that’s so overawed by the performance of the computer or a motor car but not the language that can be used to sing paeans to them. We are in danger of losing our powers of thought and speech.

In a column in the New Sunday times today Wan A. Hulaimi (Awang Goneng)  discusses the latest data on the under achievement of British school leavers :

A study of 16-19 year olds by Shefffield University last year suggested that 17 per cent of them are illiterate ... (and) even among those who read and write, literacy skills have not been much improved since the 1980s.

And then he turns the questions back on Malaysia  where :

For so long we have relegated literature and the appreciation of language and words to the second tier whilst science and the quantum theory have been relentlessly pursued. ...We diverted funds into the sciences and engineering and medicine to fulfil the national need, and then it became fashionable to choose the so-called heavy options as nation after nation churned up more engineers and doctors and oceanographers than deep readers of books. ...  we have relegated the humanities to the academic sissy and those of imprecise minds and dreamy looks.

There is no doubt at all that science and maths are important, but really are our Malaysian schools challenging our students to use language and to actually use it as a tool for thought? I really don't think so.

The End of Charing Cross?

You could take the Charing Cross Road once from Centre Point and walk south and stop for tea at the coffee shop in the National Portrait Gallery with the satisfaction that you had had the good fortune to be able to examine a facsimile edition of Tomé Pires's Summa Oriental, feasted on a second hand copy of the Haji's Book of Nursery Rhymes along the way, and you'd have probably met many remarkable men and Gurdjieff, too, and waded through murders most foul in the book-shelves of Murder Inc and probably managed to persuade a doubting bibliopolist that you had the means to buy a 1st edition copy of 1984 that you managed to persuade him to pull out from his locked showcase.

There were three chain bookshops in Charing Cross, but now there's only two, but the crux of the Charing Cross Road is not the big giants but the small shops, the second hand trade and antiquarian books and shops that look after the niche market ranging from esoterica to car manuals and books about maps and art, and first editions galore. It is this side of the street that is now under threat from money-grabbing landlords, and inhospitable planning policy and the Internet too and big bookshops and supermarkets who are able to buy in bulk and sell as loss leaders at three for the price of two.

Wan A. Hulaimi writes in today's New Sunday Times about the imminent demise of London's famous street of books. His early post on the street is linked here, and here's another link to a post on the same topic.

(And happy I am to hear that our Awang Goneng has a second book about Terengganu coming out later this year.  Now I want the big glossy coffee table version that only exists in my dreams!)

Ramadan Memories

In The Sunday Times Wan Ahmad Hulaimi (who writes as Awang Goneng) talks about his memories of Ramadan days when he was growing up in Terengganu. It's a lovely piece, and of course, if you want a bigger serving of Terengganu fare, you can pop along to his excellent blog.

(Sorry it took me a while to post this - I couldn't locate it on the NST website and then a kind soul came to my rescue via Twitter.)

The Damaging Irony of Big Time Bookselling

Foyles is still the acceptable face of bookselling, probably because it is still unlike the predators that are now quietly consuming the book trade throughout the world. Conquering giants now want commissions of 60 per cent or more from publishers and then they ask a sum again to display the titles prominently. They strike bargains that enable them to sell three books for the price of two, like lavatory cleaners in a discount store, and much as they draw crowds to their jangling tills, the trail that they leave behind is of closed shops and hand-to-mouth publishers and unknown but probably good writers that do not have the pull of Dan Brown or Harry Potter. This is the damaging irony of big time bookselling; that it consumes the very trade it is meant to be promoting, and many, many books from small publishers never get to be read by the wider book-reading people. So who stands to gain, who stands to lose in this dog-eat-book world? Remainder books are big business now, big enough to have their own book fairs. Testimony surely to the growing value of shelf space in the bookshops that have to be cleared as quickly as books are being churned up by the big boy publishers.

Following the closure of Borders in Charing Cross Road, Wan Hulaimi (our Awang Goneng) writes a passionate piece about the demise of bookshops thanks to ruthless and ultimately short-sighted business practices. I love his description of the eccentric way Foyles used to operate. It brings back memories of when I used to make a pilgrimage down to London as a teenager, to visit what was felt by many to be the best bookshop in the world. (Pic on right - Charing Cross Road)

"Readings" December : Sticky Post

This post is "sticky" - for most recent posts look beneath it.

“Readings” December: The Christmas and New Year Edition

Catch our next monthly writers event:

Date: 29th December, 2007
Time: 3.30pm
Place: Seksan's, 67, Jalan Tempinis Satu, Lucky Garden, Bangsar (Map)

The readers for this month are:

Patrick Teoh
Ajay M.K.
Amir Hafizi
Awang Goneng (Wan. A. Hulaimi)
Shinji Moriwaki
Dina Zaman

Admission free, snacky things and drinks provided, and everyone very welcome.

Please pass on the invitation to anyone else you think might be interested.

And since this is our Christmas/New Year edition, please come appropriately attired with tinsel and baubles and whatever else you feel appropriate.

(Thanks Shanim for the poster, and in advance to anyone who is prepared to stick it up on their blog or website.)

Have a Bookful Weekend

What are you reading? Any good?

Am a chapter or so into David Davidar's The Solitude of Emperors (supposed to be interviewing him tomorrow but only just got the copy).

I'm nearly finished Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost, also the Silverfish collection, News From Home. Am also enjoying several other books including Awang Goneng's Growing Up in Terengganu, and Sam Jordison's Annus Horribilis. Intend to post something about them next week.

Am also dipping into a number of non-fiction things including Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and Paul Auster's The Red Notebook. Warehouse sale purchases!

And talking of warehouse sales not only is the Pay Less one on this weekend, but Times is having a sale in Kajang.

I'm off to Singapore in the morning for the Writers' Festival and this blog will be in hiatus until I get back on Sunday night. Have a great weekend, and do slip a note in the comments about your current and recent reads so that you can keep each other entertained in my absence.

(Photo is of a Kansas hoarding by Khayal. Seem to have mislaid the original URL ...)

Boredom

I'd never thought of boredom being a western disease until I read this in Awang Goneng's Growing Up in Trengganu but this makes sense:

Boredom is an English word, and even then, a recent one. The noun bore came aboard in the second half of the 18th century, and it was only in 1823 that Lord Byron divided the world between the bores and the bored.

In Trengganuspeak — and I daresay in standardspeak too — we've been bored for as many years as the arm is long, but only in the sense of bosang (standardspeak, bosan) to mean "I've had enough" of something, a noise maybe, or someone's constant nagging. But the idea of being bored by having nothing to do is a new one, imported from the Western fixation with instant gratification, and the need to do something when nothing is being done, or to be moved by some manufactured outward stimuli because the moon, the sun, the shade, the trees and the chirping of birds aren't enough. Suddenly bosan becomes an intransitive verb, a reason in itself.

This obsession with external stimuli has given rise to many weird and unwonderful things, like the blaring video player in an express bus trundling down the motorway from Kuala Lumpur to Kemaman in the quiet of night, television sets blasting out in shopping malls and even in hospitals, and recently — in London — one public library I went to had games blasting out from PCs when everything should've been still and quiet. It was to attract the kids, and irony of ironies, in the world of books that was the only way they could think of to keep them stimulated.

Definitely there's a cultural difference here. Westerners always see time as something to be filled, productively if possible, entertainingly if not. As for me - I can't sit for any length of time without a book or newspaper in my hand, or a pen to scribble away with in a notebook!