Another Literary Saturday

Heavens above! Once again we have a single Saturday crammed with activity of the bookish kind. I'm talking about 26th which kicks off with MPH Breakfast Club (11.00a.m. to 12.30p.m.) featuring short story writer Robert Raymer, whose collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited has just been republished by MPH. (More about Robert and the event on Eric's blog.)

I've been hoping for some time that Sarawak based Robert would find his way back over here again soon, and that I would be able to nab him for Readings@Seksan. And so it has come to pass.

This then is the second great event of the day, running from 3.30-6 p.m.) and the poster will be up on this blog as soon as I have finalised the line-up (or as far as I can, given the inherent unpredictability of this kind of event!).

Saradha Narayanan will be at Silverfish at 5.30 p.m. to talk about a little about her experience with writing and then read selected passages from her book, Freedom of Choice. (Should be possible to hop from Seksan's to Silverfish in time to catch this if you need a double/treble dose of book events.)

Meanwhile, over at Rasta Restaurant in Taman Tun (5.30-8.30), the lovely Farish Noor launches his new book Dibalik Malaysia. The hilarious Harith Iskander will be MCing and there's food! (Click the poster up to full size to see details and map.)

Can you cram in four events in one day? This is the ultimate lit-lovers challenge.

Opium, Marauding Islamic Gangs, and a Squished Cat

The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee, as dear old Robbie Burns once said.

Yesterday's Readings@Seksan was the one that has given me the most headache, despite the fact that I had thought I had everything pretty well arranged. Two writers had to drop out last minute due to personal circumstances, a third just didn't answer the SMSes and phone calls and was a no show. Three readers down - I felt completely jinxed.

However, the writers who did turn up more than made up for all the difficulties and made the afternoon very worthwhile.

Teoh Choon Ean (who also goes by the pen-name Cean when she writes short fiction) is one of the best-selling local authors nominated for the The Star-Popular Readers Choice Awards for her first novel , which won third prize in the Utusan Group Literary Prize 2005. You may remember she wrote Nine Lives in just six days! Despite the speed with which the book came together, I'd say (after the extract we heard) that the writing certainly did not suffer and I can see this appealing to teenagers looking for a not too difficult and unstuffy read.

Narrated by 15 year old Bee Lian, an orphan living with grandparents, who shares her secrets with the mangy yellow cat which lives next door. Cean read from the beginning and end of the story.

The poor cat got squished on the road. I was so upset ... and am seriously thinking of starting a society for the prevention of cruelty of literary animals. (Will make Peter Carey honorary president!)

It was very special to have Kunal Basu read for us at Seksan's. He asked the crowd what they wanted him to read about opium, art, race or love. They answered in chorus Opium (which makes you wonder a bit!). In my introduction I had talked about how Kunal chooses to write about places he hasn't visited and so he read us part of The Opium Clerk which was set in Kucing. He followed that with the same extract from The Japanese Wife that he had read in the morning - perfect because so self-contained, and yet giving the essence of the whole story.

During the interval there was some lively book selling going on which I am very much encouraging. Sufian Abas was selling copies of the newly released and limited edition anthology Aweks KL which is being snapped up like hotcakes. The guys from MPH brought along piles of Kunal's books and offered a generous 20% discount.

Meanwhile I was asking around - did anyone have a poem concealed about their person that they would like to read, since there was time, and it so happened that some of the good folks from Poetry Underground (a performance poetry group based at Dram Projects) had come straight from a practice! My luck was turning.

I roped them in to do a quick set to start off the second half, Sheena Baharuddin, Reza Rosli, Catalina Rebuyan, George Wilgus, and new recruit Hazlan Zakaria took the floor to deliver just one poem each in rapid succession and they got some hearty applause.


After I'd introduced Peter Brown by telling the audience that he was originally from Essex, Peter began with a very very bad Essex girl joke ("How does an Essex girl turn the light on after sex? She kicks the car door open." Ouch.)

I had called on Peter to read at the 11th hour, and was so grateful he let himself be persuaded because his short story The Last Deejay is one of my favourites in Silverfish New Writing 7 (about which more another day), a story of friendship and loyalty set against the chilling background to a dystopian Malaysia in 2027.

I'm very glad Saradha Narayanan (looking very pretty in pink!) came back to read from The Freedom of Choice and selected passages which she felt gave us an overview of the book. The most affecting part for me was the description of the adoption of the baby.

Kunal rounded off our afternoon beautifully with an extract from his second novel, The Miniaturist, about an artist prodigy in the court of Mughal emperor Akbar.

Thanks a lot to Seksan for the wonderful space, to all those who came, to those who read, to those who helped me set up and clear up, to Shahril Nizam for the blog poster.

I plan the next event for May 24th.

Saradha Published in UK

Hard work pays off for yet another Malaysian author. Just heard the great news from Eric Forbes that Saradha Narayanan, one third of the trio who wrote the collection of stories called Snapshots now has a novel out in the UK.

The Freedom of Choice is published by Melrose Books and came out on March 1st. It is described as :

A fantastically emotional tale of interwoven troubled lives that addresses the social issues of adoption and organ transplant.

And here's the synopsis :

On a wet, gloomy Monday morning in March 2004, Rachel Thomas receives a letter from a private investigator that throws her comfortable, middle-class lifestyle into chaos. She is confronted with a deeply guarded secret from her past. Traumatic events that she has kept buried for fourteen years come back to haunt her and she must now find the courage to make a choice that may disrupt and destroy her marriage. Will she make the right choice?

Set against the backdrop of modern day Kuala Lumpur, the novel moves seamlessly between the past and the present.

The story is told in parallel through the eyes of Rachel Thomas, the young mother, and Rohan Mahendran, the private investigator assigned to find her. It describes how the different races interact with one another and underscores how racial and religious differences influence the choices people make in life.

Our biggest congrats, Saradha!

While we're in celebratory mode, let's also pat young writer Mag Tan (aka Maggie Tan) on the back. Her short story The Gardener appears in the current edition of the Asian literary journal Cha.

Postscript:

A friend pointed out that Melrose books does what's called "commissioned publishing" in which the author bears the cost of having their book published after it has been accepted, while the publisher bears overheads. (So not print-on- demand or "vanity" publishing as the manuscript must pass editorial controls.) This is a very interesting path for Malaysian authors to take, and I'm sure all of us will want to know about Saradha's experiences. I have also invited her to read at Seksan's on April 19th.

Readings at Seksen's

Phew! That's all I can say. Yesterday's readings at Seksen's place not only happened but came off rather well, I thought, considering that I hadn't had much time to organise the event and hadn't advertised it very widely. (Blogvertising works well!) Many thanks to everyone who passed the word on - there was a good crowd there.

Ted Mahsun had his parents and girlfriend there to support. This was the first reading for this keen and hardworking young writer. I'm so glad he read his story The Ghost in the Garden as I personally like it best of all the pieces of his I've so far read. It's an autobigraphical piece in which you can really hear the voices of the characters. I love the gentle humour of it and sense that it could be developed into a longer piece. (You can read the whole story here.)

We got two thirds of the writers of Snapshots! Jessie Michael read The Change, one of the stories I like best in the collection because it makes visibly the disadvantaged community in Malacca's Portuguese Settlement. The story tells of one man who does his best to break out of the poverty trap but finds circumstances cruelly against him ...

... while co-writer Saradha Narayanan read her Rani, a moving portrait of an elderly woman.


I just loved this young guy, Roy aka Fairul Nizam who entertained the crowd with his poetry. How many miles from the traditional Malay deklamasi puisy has this new generation of poets come, with driving rhythms and street-wise language? Read his poetry here.

Sharanya reading another extract from her novel. Lyrical and sensual writing. I am really looking forward to the finish work.

The sporting Jasmine Low stepped in at the last minute to read some of her shorter pieces. She's so relaxed - love the way she relates to the crowd. it's one thing to write the words, another to show ownership of them when read aloud. She read some newly written short pieces including one partly written in Hokkien which I enjoyed very much.

We had a couple of "open mic" readers: Patrick Dominic and a very young guy called kG who positively shone with enthusiasm.

So it came off. It was okay ... even if I'm not as cool as Bernice! Phew again.

Many thanks to all the brave souls who put their work out there. (It is scary!) Many thanks to the crowd who supported. Many thanks (again) to all who spread the word about the event.

Many thanks to Seksen for allowing us to use this beautiful space.

Many thanks to Budi (?) who helped me to set everything up.

Many thanks to La Bodega for generously supplying the wines.

I hope to organise Readings again for 23rd September. More news soon.

Before then though, why not go to the readings organised by Jasmine at La Bodega on Wednesday night? It promises to be very good.

Postscript

Much nicer photos than mine are turning up on different blogs. I love Sharanya's arty set. Leon's are here. Nizam's are here. And here's a very honest account by Vovin.

Snapshots of Snapshots Authors

Really nice to read the article in yesterday's Star about how Snapshots, the short story collection which is a joint venture between three local writers, Jessie Michael (top), Aneeta Sundaraj (above left) and Saradha Narayan (above right) came to be written. It's certainly a tale to inspire and I hope this nice little splash gets the sales rolling for them.

(And before you ask, Aneeta, have read about most of the stories and will post a review here soon. Promise!)

Taking Snapshots

My friends Aneeta Sundararaj, Saradha Narayanan and A. Jessie Michael have just published a collection of short fiction together: Snapshots by is published by Oak, and available to buy here.

Biggest congrats for having the guts, gumption and gusto to get your project off the ground! I've not read it yet, but Lotus Reads gives a glowing account of it here.

It's gratifying to see that the creative writing workshop which was held at the KL Litfest a couple of years ago was the starting point for the collaboration. Craig Cormick and Satendra Nandan from the University of Canberra's Creative Writing programme ran afternoon sessions for keen writers and wannabe's at the Australian High Commission*. Craig encouraged the writers and edited the final selection.

Good luck now with getting the books sold!!

(*Okay, a touch of jealousy here ... I organised the workshops but couldn't attend because everything else was going on at the same time! Sob!)