Amir Takes on Burgess

The Malayan Trilogy is a rambunctious and colourful performance of heat and lust, with the comic bathos of downpours always on hand to quench any potential high-mindedness. It should be made a compulsory text at school, as long as the teachers aren’t prudes who will latah at the lewd words.

Do go read Amir Muhammad's excellent review of Burgess' The Malayan Trilogy which was in The Malay Mail yesterday. it's so good to see the book reaching a new generation of Malaysians and influencing the writing here (both Preeta Samarasan and Shih-Li Kow have named it as one of their favourite reads about the country).

While you're on his blog, do take a look at the other reviews of Malaysian books there including Lethal Lesson and Other Stories by Adeline Lee Zhia Ern, and Adeline Loh's Peeing in the Bush. (Too many Adeline's?!)

Times - You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Times has had something of an image makeover and Leowania was kind enough to send me a photo of this tasty window display at Pavilion. What other bookstore has the Donatella Versace home collection setting off the book display very artfully?

They also have some good things happening this month, including discounts for World Book Day. (I'm smiling because MPH always celebrates this in April along with UNESCO. What can be better than two days to celebrate reading!)


And then there are some interesting author appearances. (Do click the posters up to full size for the info.)


This is one I must not miss! Tarek Fatah on March 11th. (Read more about his book and listen to a broadcast here.)


Adeline Loh will make you laugh with her crazy adventures on March 14th.


You can catch writers from Urban Odysseys collection on March 21st.

Mystery, Magic, Durians, Clouds and Zambia

This Saturday's Readings@Seksan turned out to be a female affair though not by design. Although a couple of folks I'd hoped to have event couldn't make it (Marina Mahathir had her own book launch at Megamall but will be with us next time; and Avanti Kumar was whisked off somewhere else by his publishers to promote his book.)

As always we managed to have one little disaster this Saturday (the usual anything that can go wrong manages to) , the microphone packed up but thankfully everyone read extra loudly and the audience huddled in close to listen.


Lawyer-by-day Jade-Yi Lo had the unenviable task of reading first. Jade attended my creative writing class and is a new writer absolutely hungry to write and very hard working. The story she'd shared with us on the last night of the class, The Girl with Red Ruby Shoes, was such so magical, I invited her to read in front of the crowd at Seksan's. She'd reworked the story, and even though I knew the ending, it still kicked me in the stomach.

Adeline Loh read the first hilarious chapter of her book Peeing in the Bush about what drove her to leap into the unknown, the reactions of nearest and dearest, and the search for a travelling companion ...


Lee Eeleen's story Scenes From The Shopping Complex appears in the Urban Odysseys collection. It is a beautifully observed piece about the nightmare of a weekend family trip to the shopping mall and the politics of family life. Much of it is written like a film script, and I particualrly love the delicious counterpoint between the supermarket soundtrack of James Dobson's Focus on the Family (which yes, for some reason really does get played ad nauseam in supermarkets here) and the reality of shopping with kids. Great comedy.

I was so grateful when Bernice agreed (the night before!) to come and read for us. And she had new material - autobiographical pieces for the new autobiography she is writing, Growing Up With Ghosts, as part of her M.A. course in creative writing at Universiti Malaya. I loved the portrait of the whole family feasting on durian - you could smell and taste the fruit. Yum!


Shih-Li Kow read her shortest story Let the Bird Sing from her new collection Ripples. A small bird sits on the windowsill of a dying man and the two are locked into one final adversarial battle. It's one of the more surreal pieces in the book - an excellent piece of micro-fiction.

Sheena Baharudin is a poet, spoken word artist, and lecturer at the International Islamic University. (It was nice to see that she had brought along some of her students!) She has performed her work alongside leading poets at various venues around the city. I am impressed by how she has grown as a poet, and how much more assured her voice has becom both live and on the page. Just take a look at the poems she read - Monologue 1.01.001 and and Cloudy Conversations.

Thanks to all who came (including quite a number of new people who I hope will find their way again), to all who read, to Shahril Nizam for the blog poster, to Seksan for his inspiring space, to the guys from MPH in Bangsar Village for bringing over books to sell, to Eugene and friends who cleared up, and to Reza in advance for fixing the microphone ...

See you all later in the month. I've fixed readings for March 28th (provided Seksan will have us) and have a great line-up already worked out. More about it later.

Sorry I'm late posting this - my photos weren't so good so I was waiting for someone to come up with some better ones and Tan May Lee came to my rescue! (The first three nice pics are hers, the last three not so nice pics are mine.)

Adeline Goes Bush

A couple of months after I returned from Zambia. I was seeking a more meaningful direction in my life, and decided that I wanted to do some creative writing. At the same time, I had what you could call an “African hangover”, which made me reflect obsessively about my trip. Nobody I knew understood what was so great about my trip or where in the world was Zambia. ... So I thought, why don’t I write about it and tell people about the wonders of this country? It was when I started to work on it that I knew a book was taking shape. Mostly because I think Chan and me were hilarious together.

Adeline Loh shares the story behind her new book, Peeing in the Bush, with Amy de Kanter in the Readsmonthly supplement of Starmag today, while S.W. Low reviews it. And Bissme S. also interviews her in The Sun.

It's an account of a journey into Zambia that I enjoyed very much, and it reminded me of my own backpacking days and the odd characters and scrapes along the way with her naive sidekick, Chan, in tow.

Adeline is more a Bill Bryson than a Paul Theroux, and the humour often somewhat erm ... scatalogical. But I really hope that it encourages more Malaysians to venture off the beaten track and away from the package tour.

Adeline will be reading from the book at Seksan's next Saturday.

(BTW there's a 20% off coupon to clip in the paper to use at Popular Bookstores!)

My Celeb Day

A couple of pictures taken today.

This is on the set of Venus at NTV 7 after the interview with Tan Twan Eng, show host Aishah Sinclair (the lady in red), and the other folks behind the show Grace Liew (next to her), and the producer, Wan Sariah Wan Jaafar.

The NTV7 interview turned out to be a lot of fun. Aishah called me "a celebrity blogger" which made me smile and want to say "Aiyoh, no lah". She was so relaxed and warm and made the whole thing go really easily.

Tan Twan Eng joined us on the sofa after the first segment to talk about his book, and other things we touched on were whether really Malaysians aren't readers, about the British Council Library closing and the work BC does in Malaysia, about a FIRSTWoRKS workshop she had a picture of, how I'd enjoyed being the first reader in Malaysia of The Gift of Rain and what I'd thought of the book.

After that I drove to PJ and went searching for The Seapark Brickhouse, which turned out to bein a not-terribly-glam area. But the moment you step inside this beautifully renovated single-storey terraced house you feel as if you have entered another world.

The simplicity and airiness and sense of outside-brought-inside reminded me of Seksan's gallery, and his firm have apparently been involved in the project. I loved the monochrome unclutteredness. Never mind the bed and breakfast it is supposed to be, I would like to live in this house.

I posed around for photos, striking some pretty strange poses - one or two in the bathroom which was my favourite room with frangipani trees (for heaven's sake) growing up through the centre of it and no ceiling but the sky.

You will see the results in the next copy of Quill.

A whole gang of friends was there, Eric, Janet and May Lee from MPH, Daphne, Twan, and Adeline Loh who has a book about her travels in Zambia called Peeing in the Bush coming out.

We ate chicken rice, drank teh-ice, talked books and authors, and laughed a lot. A perfect afternoon.