Malaysia's New Place in the Literary Sun ...

... Gets a Sunflower!

The reviews for Preeta's Evening is the Whole Day have started to appear. Salil Tripathi writes a very nice piece in The Independent called - ahem - Malaysia's new place in the literary sun. It begins with a lovely loud cheer for the changes occurring in our local literary landscape :

Samarasan represents the quiet emergence of new Malaysian writing in books such as Rani Manicka's The Rice Mother and Touching Earth, Tash Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory, and Tan Twan Eng's Booker-longlisted The Gift of Rain last year. These writers have significantly broadened our understanding of the region earlier seen largely through the gin-soaked, misty eyes of Somerset Maugham, the Tiger-beer induced nostalgia of Anthony Burgess*, or the laconic fiction of Paul Theroux.

He discusses the socio-political background of the novel :

Malaysia permeates Samarasan's novel without didacticism about the country's identity politics. It shows the symbiotic and separate relationship between Malays, Chinese and Indians. Jo Kukathas, the gifted satirist, once joked that in Malaysia "the Chinese do the work, the Malays take the credit, the Indians get the blame". Buried within the quip is a stark divide, explaining the consequences of the May 1969 riots which formed the basis of Lloyd Fernando's 1993 novel, Green is the Colour. ... Those riots led to Malaysia's preferential policies, which benefited Malays over Chinese and Indians, so forcing many non-Malays to seek educational and employment opportunities abroad.

and calls the story multi-layered, but feels that the plot gets rather complicated.

Francesca Segal in The Observer yesterday found the novel :

Vibrant, descriptive, and peppered with colourful Indian-Malaysian dialogue, this is an epic that's informative without being worthy, and engrossing but not frivolous.

Indian reviewers seem perplexed by the novel - you can almost hear them thinking How come this novelist of Indian heritage, clearly influenced by Indian authors, isn't writing the kind of Indian novel we expect? Check out Amardeep's review and the interesting debate in the comments at Sepia Mutiny.

You can find other reviews on Preeta's website.

I'm feeling more than a little frustrated at the moment because I'm longing, nay dying, to talk about what I think of the book, but since I have reviewed it for next month's Off the Edge, am not going to go there yet. Except to say that I told Preeta that I think she wrote the novel especially for me! I was so hungry for this kind of fiction about my adopted country.

I will, though, be posting up extracts from an interview with Preeta here soon.

The novel is in the bookshops now (I saw trade paperback copies in MPH the other day for RM59.90) and there are bound to be discounts and rebates to factor in here and there to bring the price down further.

Postscript :

Shirley from MPH reminds me to say that Preeta will be here to do bookshop appearances in October ... and hurray, she will be at Seksan's again too!

Postscript :

Another nice message from Shirley :

Good news! MPH Bookstores will be giving out cut-out coupon 25% for Preeta's book in StarMag in June Reads Monthly, coming out on 29 June, valid till 13 July.

*I think this statement shows a misunderstanding of The Malayan Trilogy though ...

Wena's Wet Weekend

Then, after lunch and a quick rush round the supermarket to get survival rations for the afternoon with Chet's help, dashed over to Seksan's and the heaven's opened.

I was drenched even before I had unpacked the car, and the inclement weather didn't let up the whole afternoon. (What is happening to the weather? It doesn't seem like the monsoon ever went away?) But fortunately our loyal audience turned up in decent numbers. (Thank you!)

Wena Poon read a passage from her story The Shooting Ranch, my favourite story from Lions in Winter. Again, it was beautifully dramatised, and really showed how much she gets into the skin of her characters to write about them. (Not all authors - even some very big name ones - are good readers of their own work!)

Wena sadly had to rush off early as she had another appearance at Borders. I'm so glad she came, but sorry we couldn't have arranged better weather for her.

Animah Kosai (above right) dragged friends Dina Zaman (above left) ...

... and actor Na'a Murad (here getting his photo taken by a member of the press) along to read a couple of scenes from a new play she's working on called 100 Stones, which featured a woman married to a guy who has just become an elected representative. He doesn't seem to be too interested in sex, and there she is, desperately frustrated trying to seduce him with every trick in the book including sexy negligees.

It was interesting talking to Na'a in the break who reckons that the changed political landscape and the greater openness and willingness to engage in issues that has followed, is making it easier for artists of all kinds, but especially playwrights. It's early days yet ... but really, let's hope he's right.

I've been looking forward to Sufian Abas' first book for a very long time ... ever since we both got out first short stories published in Silverfish New Writing 1, in fact. Kasut Biru Robina is a collection of short shorts, some short short shorts just a few lines long. Bite size and snackable.

Sufian read a piece called Malam Mailakat Tidur (The Night the Angels Slept), and modest chap that he is, was going to end there but we encored him back for a second piece - Kisah Cinta (Love Story), a very amusing little tale about the fickleness of women.

Priya K. made an appeal for funds for the forthcoming Malaysian-UK exchange project, and illustrator Shahril Nizam brought some of his pictures along to be auctioned. The bidding is still ongoing and I'll post more about this later.

The break was extra long because the rain overhead was nosiy, but no-one seemed to mind too much as they were busy partying, networking, selling books ...

Ted Mahsun read a story, Pak Sudin's Bicycle I'd read on an e-group earlier and liked very much. He read it for the first time at Kata Suara the other week and had been surprised at how well it had gone down with the audience. Ted's writing is warm and whimsical, and it's really nice to see him developing as a writer. (He has a review of the new Stephen King book in the Star today, by the way.)

George Wielgus, poet, performer and writer describes himself as :

... a refugee from the wastelands of suburban England.

Slipping into the persona of her alter-ego, Mighty Jah-J, he gave us some hard-hitting poems, including Liberation and Death No. 1, which left us in little doubt why he had won the last KL Poetry Slam.

He was also selling his recently self-published limited edition zine for the price of a teh tarik (cup of "pulled tea"). You can read his poem Inside-Outsiders here.

We ended with a short tribute to Lloyd Fernando who passed away recently, and Priya K. read an extract from Green is the Colour.

Thanks : to all those who braved the rain, those who read, those who sold books, those who auctioned art, those who helped set up and put away and wash glasses, Shahril Nizam who designed the blogposter, and of course Seksan for the use of his beautiful space and the stunning visual backdrop provided by the current exhibition.

Our next readings is on April 19th and among the writers appearing will be author Kunal Basu.

The Author Who Was Brave Enough

I recently read Lloyd Fernando's Green is the Colour (which had been sitting on my shelves for some time) partly as my way of commemorating Lloyd's death and partly, because it seemed a particularly relevant book to read around the time of the election.

It is a very interesting novel of ideas, set in an almost dystopian Malaysia in the aftermath of the racial riots of May 13, 1969. The country is still scarred by violence, vigilante groups roam the countryside, religious extremists set up camp in the hinterland, there are still sporadic outbreaks of fighting in the city, and everyone, all the time, is conscious of being watched. It comes as some surprise to find that the story is actually a contemporary (and very clever) reworking of a an episode from the Misa Melayu, an 18th century classic written by Raja Chulan.

In this climate of unease, Fernando employs a multi-racial cast of characters. At the centre of the novel there's a core of four main characters, good (if idealistic) young people who cross the racial divide to become friends, and even fall in love.

There's Dahlan, a young lawyer and activist who invites trouble by making impassioned speech on the subject of religious intolerance on the steps of a Malacca church; his friend from university days, Yun Ming, a civil servant working for the Ministry of Unity who seeks justice by working from within the government.

The most fully realised character of the novel is Siti Sara, and much of the story is told from her viewpoint. A sociologist and academic, she's newly returned from studies in America where she found life much more straightforward, and trapped in a loveless marriage to Omar, a young man much influenced by the Iranian revolution who seeks purification by joining religious commune. The hungry passion between Yun Ming and Siti - almost bordering on violence at times and breaking both social and religious taboos - is very well depicted. (Dahlan falls in love with Gita, Sara's friend and colleague, and by the end of the novel has made an honest woman of her.)

Like the others, Sara is struggling to make sense of events :

Nobody could get may sixty-nine right, she thought. It was hopeless to pretend you could be objective about it. speaking even to someone close to you, you were careful for fear the person might unwittingly quote you to others. if a third person was present, it was worse, you spoke for the other person's benefit. If he was Mlay you spoke one way, Chinese another, Indian another. even if he wasn't listening. in the end the spun tissue, like an unsightly scab, became your vision of what happened; the wound beneath continued to run pus.

Although the novel is narrated from a third person viewpoint, it is curious that just one chapter is narrated by Sara's father, one of the minor characters, an elderly village iman and a man of great compassion and insight. This shift in narration works so well that I'm surprised Fernando did not make wider use of it.

The novel has villain, of course, the unsavoury Pangalima, a senior officer in the Department of Unity and a man of uncertain racial lineage (he looks Malay, has adopted Malay culture, so of course, that's enough to make him kosher!). He has coveted Sara for years, and is determined to win her sexual favours at any cost.

The novel is not without significant weaknesses. It isn't exactly a rollicking read, and seems rather stilted - not least because there are just too many talking heads with much of the action taking place "offstage", including the rape at the end, which is really the climax of the whole novel.

If we're interested in Yun Ming, Dahlan and Omar it is because of the contradictory ideas they espouse, but in each case their arguments could have been explored in greater depth and the characters themselves have been more fully fleshed.

The plot of Green is the Colour never really holds together as well as it might but seems to be perpetually rushing off in new directions (as actually do the characters!) without fully exploring what is set up already. (I was particuarly disappointed that we don't get to spend more time with Omar in the commune.)

But the strengths of the novel more than makes up for these lapses.

There's been a lot of talk on this blog about local authors not being brave enough to write about the great mustn't-be-talked-abouts of race, religion and politics in Malaysian society. Here's one author who was brave enough to do just that. (And look, hey, the sky didn't cave in!)

Here's an author too who was able to think himself into the skin of people of different races - how many since have been able, or prepared, to make that imaginative leap?

Here too is an author who is able to convincingly evoke the landscape of Malaysia both urban and rural in carefully chosen details.

Above all, though, one feels that here is an author who says what needed to be said. Heck, what still needs to be said!

Here, he's using Dahlan as his mouthpiece, but the sentiments are clearly the author's own :

All of us must make amends. Each and every one of us has to make an individual effort. Words are not enough. We must show by individual actions that we will not tolerate bigotry and race hatred.

Reading this novel now, very many years after I should have, I feel even sadder that just as Lloyd was talking about writing a third novel, illness cut him down. We can only imagine how much further he might have gone.

Well worth reading on the novel is Wong Soak Koon's essay which forms the introduction to the Silverfish edition of the book, and also Peter Wicks paper entitled A Dream Shattered : Lloyd Fernando's Literary Vision of Malaysia which is downloadable as a PDF.

One question about the book which still puzzles me - what does the title refer to?

Remembering Lloyd

Kee Thuan Chye refers to his friend Lloyd Fernando in today's Starmag as :

... truly a scholar and a gentleman ... a man of grace and polish ... (who) loved literature and imparted his knowledge to his students with such passion that it made an indelible impact on their lives

He describes how Lloyd achieved his own education under difficult circumstances, migrating with his family from Sri Lanka when he was 12, and then during the war years having to work at a succession of menial jobs (including trishaw rider - can you imagine?) before he could continue his studies.

He completed his Senior Cambridge exam, and then worked as a teacher before he was able to enter university at the age of 29 and became an assistant lecturer at Universiti Malaya. He did a PhD with Leeds university and became a full professor in 1967. (Later of course he also became a lawyer and set up in practice.)

His contribution to Malaysian literature was enormous :

He was really the only person at the time visibly promoting new writing in English. He edited the landmark anthology 22 Malaysian Stories (1962) that gave recognition to fiction writers, the most outstanding of whom was Lee Kok Liang. Deservedly, that volume has seen numerous reprints and been adopted as a text in literature classes. It was even reissued more than 40 years later, in 2005.

Lloyd also brought attention to Malaysian playwrights. He edited New Drama One and New Drama Two (both published in 1972), which presented the works of Lee Joo For, Edward Dorall, Syed Alwi, and others. Without these two volumes, some of the plays of our pioneering playwrights might have now been lost.

Chye goes on to talk about how Lloyd:

... often spoke about his vision of a multicultural Malaysia transcending race and religion. That was something we had in common, together with our concern for racial integration and equality.

He dealt with these themes in his novels, Scorpion Orchid (1976) and Green Is the Colour (1993). Some have criticised his style as being too academic in its detachment, but the message shines through nonetheless.

I regard the novels as two of the most important works of Malaysian fiction in any language. They came from a writer who loved his country enough to advocate eschewing narrow tribal concerns in favour of humanism and harmony.

Lloyd once told me that one of the challenges he encountered in his writing was his constant attempt to find ways of expressing himself in English without sounding “English English”. He avoided stock epithets and turns of phrase. He strove for Malaysian inflection. Those who mistook him for a patrician professor of English – no doubt reinforced at one time by his pipe-smoking penchant – never saw the colloquial Malaysian side of Lloyd.

I think Shirley Lim's tribute to him is particularly apt :

If Malaysia had more like him, our history would have been very different, and as a people and a nation we would be in a much better position.

Professor Lim Chee Seng in the New Sunday Times calls Lloyd :

... the man who can be said to have shaped the Department of English at the country’s oldest university. He also calls him a literary activist (a term I really love) and mentions his setting up of the Malaysian Association for Commonwealth literature and Language Studies (MACLALS) which is still active to this day.

He says of Scorpion Orchid and Green is the Colour :

These novels focused on the theme of nation in ways which stimulated thinking on the urgent questions of what it means to be a Malaysian and how significant it is to be thoughtful in approaching the issues of living together in a multicultural society, in which demagogues and propagandists can sometimes usurp and sometimes distort the public discourse about the profoundly important issue of building the nation in prosperity and harmony.

Prof Lim says that he intendeds to celebrate Lloyd's life and work with a

... festschrift* volume with the working title, Essays In Honour Of Lloyd Fernando, which will feature academic essays, poems, reminiscences and even photographic work to honour a deeply influential and much loved professor, novelist, friend, husband and father.

And I reckon the best way for the rest of us to commemorate Lloyd is to read his novels.

(Ignoramus me didn't know what this word meant and had to look it up.)

Lloyd Fernando Passes Away

I just got news from Kee Thuan Chye that author/playwright Lloyd Fernando, passed away last night. Even as we speak words of tribute are being written by his friends, and I will be linking to those over the next few days.

Lloyd spent the last 11 years of his life wheelchair bound after a major stroke. I met him just once before that, and was impressed with his warmth and sincerity.

My condolences and love to his wife, Marie, and daughters Eva and Sunetra.

Postscript :

Zedeck on the Kakiseni blog remembers him through his work :

I read Green is the Colour in one sleepless night, and while I did not completely enjoy it, it affected me more than I had anticipated. I grew up with 22 Malaysian Stories in my family library, and it was the very first artifact of Malaysian English-language literature I consumed.

Raman in his obituary on the Silverfish website :

You have done your bit and you will never be forgotten. It will be for us to carry on. You made have that a little easier though.

Finding Lloyd

Have a huge pile of notebooks, the accumulated junk of years of scribbling. I'm slowly ploughing through them, rereading, indexing the entries. There are whole captured moments. I walk in my own shoes at that point in the past. There are patterns which repeat themselves without my realising. I must think about them more. And there's so much I had forgotten and it's good to be reminded about.

Had completely forgotten this encounter:

23/6/97

Met a writer. Was asked to judge a choral speaking contest at Bukit Bintang Girl's School. Chief judge was Lloyd Fernando ("Scorpion Orchid"). He gave me a lift home in his old Volvo. I remembered reading in in Abu's Law association report that he had become a lawyer. But he says he wants to make more time now to get back to writing.

Now this is the bit I find most interesting looking back:

He told me that he was sad that no writer seemed to be chronicalling the changes in Malaysian society, addressing issues. There needs to be a Malaysian Dickens, a Malaysian Vikram Seth.

My thoughts: 1) he was (still is) totally right 2) we're still waiting.

Welcome Reissues

News in Starmag today of a reissue of two important short fiction collections editied by Lloyd Fernando. (I would give you the link but despite a long and frustrating search on the Star's home page I didn't locate the Rubin Khoo's article there. Mad am I, indeed I am.)

Fernando was professor in Universiti Malaya's English department and principle mover behind the creative writing course which aimed "to encourage students to write original works in the form of short stories, plays or poems."

Two anthologies, edited by Fernando, resulted: 22 Malaysian Stories (1963) and Malaysian Short Stories(1981). The good news is that both books have just been reissued by Maya Press. (The launch was on June 25th at Sutra House.)

As Lloyd's wife Marie says: "the books were done at a time when no-one gave a thought to local writing and Lloyd was always encouraging his students to do something." The anthologies encouraged emerging voices including those of K.S. Maniam (who also taught on the course), Shirley Lim, Kassim Ahmad, Stella Kon and John Machado.

The article quotes from the introducrtion of the first anthology:

"The short story in Malay, in the hands of practitioners like Keris Mas, Alias Ali and Shahnon Ahmad, has in fact burgeoned in post-war years into the dominant literary form in the language. The same does not hold true for the short story in English."

But the short story in English did not really take off, even after these anthologies were published. (Just read Amir Mohammad's excellent Foreword: Canned Goods in Silverfish New Writing 1 to be brought up to date.)

More recently, there's definitely been a resurgence of the short story in English thanks in no small part to Raman's efforts.

But more, much more needs to happen for local writers. And much more needs to be initiated by local writers. (If the Neohikayat Kutus can be brave and bold, why not others?)

The reissues of Lloyd Fernando's anthologies then are a timely reminder of where the Malaysian short story in English has been, and a kick-to-the-seat-of-the-pants to say isn't it time to take it even further?