Spicy Sambal With Anchovies

I briefly mentioned Chua Kok Yee's new collection of short stories Without Anchovies the other day, and want to say more about it now. (I'm slow, I know...).

The last time I wrote about Kok Yee's writing was when News From Home was published, and I commented that he had a wonderfully quirky imagination but that his writing style needed to develop. I am frankly surprised (and very pleased) to see how far he has come in this short time. Here he writes the kind of clear, straightforward prose that allows the reader to ease right into a story, and his strong openings pull you into the story from the word go.

I'm a really jaded reader at the moment. I pick up fiction - get so far into it and toss it aside when it disappoints, but I enjoyed each and every one of these stories.  The best of them, I found fresh and surprising, and for that reason I'm not going to tell you too much about what happens in them.

The title piece Sambal without Anchovies, a well-told and moving story of family relationships, love and loss, and a family and nasi lemak business.
My favourite story of all was The Gift (which Kok Yee read at Seksan's last week) and I could have wept for the girl who scrimps and saves to buy her mother a gift ... only to have everything go most horribly wrong. Smoking Can Kill is extremely clever because here smoking does kill, but in the most bizarrely round-about way.

Kok Yee does horror very well - I loved Moving which was an unusual twist on the usual haunted house story, while An Untrue Love story has quite a conventional plot for a local horror story (remember - I grew up with New Thrill, Malaysia's trashy horror newspaper in the 1980's!) but works very well because of the unconventional voice of its narrator who fills in the gaps of what didn't happen with her alternative view of events. 

A Circus Interview was surreal and haunting, and reminded me of the stories of Etgar Keret.

I particularly enjoyed the stories where humour was blended with the horror Dead Cougar was a delight, and A Cemetery Story, a cheeky little take on the British Council's City Of Stories project, had me grinning.

Being able to create characters which are not only believable but who really intrigue us in so short a space is no mean feat. Mei who appears in both in Dinner and Cruel Mother is particularly well-realised and I'd be happy to spend more time in her company. The mother in Thieving Daughter is both demented and achingly lonely and we can't help but be fascinated by her. (It's actually quite strange that Kok Yee's female characters are often more convincing than the males!)

In some cases, I felt that while the concept of the story was simply excellent,  the execution could have been a rather better.

The outer frame of the story The Hippocratic Oath - the anesthetist in the operating theatre considering how she has the life of the patient in her hands - is very well realised with plenty of attention to detail, but the charcters in the inner story (the gangster and his wife) are comic-book stereotypes and we can't believe in them, or really feel his menace or her fear.

I wasn't terribly convinced by Embracing Your Shadow where a man is hanted by the memory of a woman he saw only once years before so that he is never able to make his marriage a success. It would actually be hard for any writer to make this seem possible, as we all know that in real life even the most physically appealing member of the opposite sex will generally cease to figure in our thoughts as soon as we move past them, and even the memories of old lovers fade in time. This woman does not seem to have much about her that distinguishes her from the mass for the reader, which makes the protagonist's obsession even harder to fathom.

There's a couple more things I'd like to pass on advice to Kok Yee (and other writers who might be reading this, of course!). Firstly beware of unnecessary POV shifts, as in Sambal Without Anchovies - there actually is no reason why the whole story couldn't have been told from a consistent viewpoint.  Secondly, there is no need to describe every character's physical appearance and clothes when we first encounter them - just select the one or two telling details that will make them stand out for us.  As readers we are perfectly capable of filling in the blanks when imagining our characters.

As for the production of the book, love the creamy paper and the cover fold-ins.  I'm not wild about the picture of the dead flowers which is greatly at odds with the title. (Mixed metaphors?) 

There are some proofreading errors in the book- many more than there should be - and predictably (because Malaysians always find these hard) the most problematic areas are: sequence of tenses (when to use past simple and when to use past prefect); and the confusion between will and would for real and unreal conditions.   But yes, I'm being picky as an ex-English teacher turned editor is, I think, allowed to be. The book needed another editing pass.

Kok Yee is a local writer very well-worth supporting and it will be really interesting to see his development. There are certainly plenty of anchovies in this spicy sambal.

Adeline's Apology

One sad story came to light a few days ago. Yusof Martin sent me a copy of two PDF files. One of Adeline Lee's piece Define Happiness from her first collection, Lethal lessons and Other Stories the other of a piece called Happiness by Sarah Provencal from Chicken Soup for the Teenager's Soul IV. The similarities between the two could not be written off to coincidence. Raman had already discovered two weeks previously and had destroyed all copies of the book. (His note about it is on the main page of his website.) Adeline has written an apology which is now up on the Silverfish website. If you bought the book and want your money back, then you can contact her for a refund. My sadness is actually threefold. I feel very sorry for the publisher who took a risk on a new writer that he saw a great deal of potential in. Secondly, although Adeline did something wrong and unbelievably stupid, she is just 18 and this is a tragic way for a writing career to end even before it has begun. She does have talent and I hope that she is able to pick herself up and keep writing ... and eventually regain our trust. Thirdly, I am so sad that this disease of appropriating someone else's material and passing it off as your own is so widespread in Malaysian society. What really can be done about it? Isn't this something that schools and other educational instituions should really be drumming into kids? In this case the situation has been handled entirely appropriately. Don't we wish that these people (here and here) had had the guts to make the public apology they owed us? Shouldn't that infamous poetry book have been withdrawn and pulped? Postscript :

It is a hard lesson to learn. Nevertheless, stealing other people’s written work is no less a crime than stealing their mobile phone, car or any other materialistic appendage you care to name. The more serious crime, I believe, is the ethical crime involved with plagiarising; the lack of thought that taking another person’s creative endeavour, publishing it as one’s own, gaining plaudits for it, might be wrong.

See Yusof Martin's take on the affair. The picture of the extracts from the two books comes from his blog.

Adeline's Debut

Another of Raman's protogees is interviewed in The New Straits Times today.

Max Koh talks to Adeline Lee Zhia Ern who is just 18 years old and has just publish her first collection of stories, Lethal Lesson And Other Stories, with Silverfish. The book was launched at the bookshops tenth anniversary celebrations last weekend.

It's good to see so much enthusiasm for writing and I hope we hear more of this young lady.

Congrats Silverfish

Silverfish Books celebrates its 10th birthday today with a party for its friends today at 5 - 7 p.m. My congrats to Raman and thanks for opening a space for local writers and literature.

Shih-Li for Frank O'Connor

Congratulations to Shih-Li Kow and to Silverfish. Ripples has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story prize (as Wena Poons Lions in Winter was last year).

The list is 57 strong (up from 38 last year) with most entries coming from the US and UK, and there are some pretty big names on there, including Chimananda Ngozi Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro.

As The Short Review says :

... this is a wonderful move on the part of the organisers, giving much-needed publicity to many, many books not published by mainstream publishers but by small presses without teams of publicists ... . What is also wonderful is that "big" names are alongside newer writers, showcasing that the short story is not just the province of those who have yet to "graduate" to novels!

(Thanks Steven of Horizon Books for sending me the news and the links!)

Saturday Events

Yesterday afternoon presented tough choices - two events I wanted to go to on at the same time.

I plumped for Shih-Li's launch of Ripples at Silverfish. Shih-Li read the title story which is one of my favourites in the book, and fielded questions from her audience - most of them wanting to know about how she writes ("In bits and pieces, here and there.") and where her ideas come from.

(I've managed to nab her for Readings at Seksan's on Saturday, which I am very happy about.)

Gwen filled me in on the event I missed, which I thank her for :

I was lucky to be one of those who were at Kinokuniya KLCC yesterday to hear Oliver Jeffers talk about his books.

He had a lot of fascinating material to show us how he worked.

He showed how he made his collage for backgrounds and how he used the concept of light source in the portrayal of characters and scenes.

The corner where he was giving his presentation was overflowing and inadequate to allow all the people who came to see and hear what he had to show and say.

I bought a copy of How To Catch a Star for my grandchildren and there was an impressive line of people waiting to get their purchases signed. The signature is a personal one with a tiny sketch as well.

We need more visitors like Oliver Jeffers here in KL. There is a growing group of people interested in producing good books for children.

Shih-Li's Launch

Why not go cheer on Shih-Li Kow at the launch of her collection of short stories, Ripples, at Silverfish this Saturday, 21st Feb at 5.30 p.m.? Full details on the website. And yes (much as I hate to admit Raman is ever right about things!) the book is very good indeed.

No Terrestrial Address Reason for Book Seizure

At The Nut Graph Zedeck Siew manged to catch up with Home Ministry's acting director for Selangor, Zainal Osman, to find out why copies of Farish Noor's book From Majapahit to Putrajaya were seized from Kinokuniya in a joint inspection carried out by officials from the ministry, and from three Islamic departments : Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais), Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (Jawi) and Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim)*.

Would you believe it - the first reason for the confiscation was the book does not carry the publisher's terrestrial address? :

The first clause of Section 11 of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984 stipulates that “Every publication printed or published within Malaysia shall have printed legibly in Bahasa Malaysia or the English language on its first or last leaf the name and address of its printer and publisher.” ... According to Zainal, while the book does contain “Silverfish Books, Kuala Lumpur” on its first page, this is not sufficient to fulfil the requirements of the law. “We can already charge the publisher and bookseller in court,” he asserted. ... If convicted, they are liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine not exceeding RM5,000, or both.

Raman of course explains that in the ten years since he has set up Silverfish, he has moved three times, and even if he had included a street address in the book at the time of publication, it wouldn't be valid now!

But it seems that the second reason why the book is under scrutiny was because it touches on issues concerning Islam. En. Zainul explains :

Because we have no expertise on this matter, we have sent it to Jakim for study.

And this is apparently why the investigation is taking so long and why no date can be given when Jakim would arrive at a decision about the book.

Raman's decision is to withdraw the book with immediate effect and to republish (since the book is not banned) - with the address included.

It will be interesting now to see what happens - or doesn't happen - with the book. But as I say, we are watching.

* JAIS = Islamic Department of Selangor (= JAWI = Islamic Department for the Federal Territory (i.e. Kuala Lumpur), JAKIM = Department of Islamic Development.

Literary Happenings!

Here are some of the other literary things you can find going on in the next few days in KL.

Tomorrow, Saturday 22nd November at 5.30pm at Silverfish Books (58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar, KL) Kee Thuan Chye and friends Azmi Sharom, Animah Kosai, Helen Ang and Chacko Vadaketh will be reading excerpts from March 8th : The Day Malaysia Woke Up. There will be a discussion and Q&A after the reading and refreshments will be served. Free admission. (More information here.)

The Department of English Language and Literature (IIUM) will be hosting An Evening of Readings and Spoken Word on Tuesday 25th November from 8:00pm - 10:30pm in Ballroom 3, Crown Princess Hotel, City Square Centre, Jalan Tun Razak. This is an event held in conjunction with the international conference entitled ENGLISH and ASIA: First International Conference on Language and Linguistics 2008.

The evening will feature local poets and writers Dato' M. Shanmughalingam, Prof. Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, Dr. Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf, the popular KL Slam's regulars and finalists, the active spoken word collective Poetry Underground and many more.

There will also be a performance by Ms Hardev Kaur, renowned Malaysian Hindi singer and local indie musicians ready to perform their original compositions. There may also be an open mic session.

The event is free for all Conference delegates. However, for non-delegates, there is a RM40 door fee inclusive of supper break by the end of the program.

Please reserve tickets now as places are limited. Contact Sheena 0129522094 nubian.crib@gmail.co to book your seats or if you have any enquiry! (The event also has a Facebook page.)

Please don't forget about Readings@Seksan on November 29th. I am just about to get the info out!

Matthew Thomas and the Handwritten Manuscript

I missed the interview with Matthew Thomas in the Malay Mail* (I can only conclude that it was a heavy-rainfall day of the sort that soaks the newspaper in the driveway before you rescue it - we've had a few of those recently!). So I was glad when Raman put the whole thing up on his website.

The picture shows Thomas, left with his friend M Keshavjee, at the book launch at Silverfish. I am much touched by the fact that Thomas initially submitted a handwritten manuscript to Raman!

*It's nice to see that the newspaper has its website up and running at last!

Tales from the Court Launched

From Raman :

The launch of Matthew Thomas' Tales from the Court and other stories will be held at Silverfish Books on Saturday, 6th September 2008 at 5.00 pm. Attending the function and launching the book (all the way from France) will be his very good friend Mohamed M Keshavjee who also wrote the afterword in the book.

"In this compendium of short stories, the author, who is a keen student of human foibles, gives us a series of vignettes from the Kuala Lumpur of the 1950s. His characters come vividly to life: from Eddodes, the creative and legendary builder of castles in the air and Boniface 'Birdie Boy' Ratnayake, the aspirant judge, to Musso the exorcist, and Mike Kumar, the confidence trickster. In this book, all these characters talk to us. The author captures the very essence of their being and their cultures as they play their little games in life, made up of illusions, craftiness, ego, hope and aspirations."

This is an open invitation, all are welcome.

Tales from the Court

A new title from Silverfish Books and available from the website : Tales from the Court and Other Stories by Matthew Thomas :

Rukumani Devi, the court interpreter cum court clerk, cum file caller, cum amicus curiae of the court, cum confidant of the magistrate, cum Amway agent rose, a tinge of white ash smeared on her forehead and in a crisp yellow sari, looking important. She reeled out the civil and criminal action numbers with accompanying names of legal firms so fast that I missed mine.

She then called a second time around, this time angrily, "How many times must call-lah?"

Rukumani Devi conducted herself as would a maestro conducting an orchestra. Everything was at her fingertips, an upturned palm if she wanted counsel to stand and a down-turned palm for counsel to sit. The Magistrate, the lawyers and litigants paid her great heed.

As Mohamed M Keshavjee writes in his afterword: In this compendium of short stories, the author, who is a keen student of human foibles, gives us a series of vignettes from the Kuala Lumpur of the 1950s. His characters come vividly to life: from Eddodes, the creative and legendary builder of castles in the air and Boniface 'Birdie Boy' Ratnayake, the aspirant judge, to Musso the exorcist, and Mike Kumar, the confidence trickster. In this book, all these characters talk to us. The author captures the very essence of their being and their cultures as they play their little games in life, made up of illusions, craftiness, ego, hope and aspirations.

Silverfish Writers' Forums

Good for Raman for taking the initiative with this. (It's very badly needed.) :

After repeated requests, Silverfish Books is organising a writers' forum. The intention is for it to become a monthly meeting for aspiring creative writers in English to read their works, request feedback, network, form their own splinter writers' groups, and to share their stories with others having similar interests. We have been pondering this for a while. The original intention was to make it exclusive to Silverfish Writing Programme participants. But after discussing this with others we have decided to open it to all (including writers from Singapore if any want to make the trip). No fee will be charged.

It is proposed that this free forum be held on the first Saturday of each month ( as long as interest lasts) and the first event will be on
Date: Saturday, 5th July 2008
Time: 2.30 to 4.30pm
Venue: Silverfish Books, 58-1, Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru

This session is ideal for you if:

1. You write short fiction, biography or travelogues
2. You have unpublished short stories, biographies or travelogues of around 2000-3000 words to share
3. You crave constructive criticism on your writing to help you improve
4. You want to continue writing till you die
5. You are willing to work hard to improve your writing
6. You are passionate about writing
7. You intend to write enough stories for a whole book (not a one-story-in-ten-years writer)
8. You are thick-skinned and resilient and not afraid of criticism

This session may be a waste of time for you if:

1. You want to write mainly to make money
2. You only want to be a writer but you are not interested in the hard work (or you merely want to be famous for being famous)
3. You are not open to criticism of your writing
4. You are not willing to share your stories.
5. You are not interested in reading various genres and authors
6. You think writing is all about glamour
7. You think your writing is already perfect
8. You have a weak heart
9. You like to dominate events by not allowing anyone else to speak (or present their stuff)
10. It's all about you, you and you.

Great list too!

Shirley's Shawl

Author Shirley Lim was wonderful fun yesterday, as she launched her new book, Princess Shawl, written for women aged :

... from 9-90!

Looking enviably slim and energetic in a floral dress (don't you just love the irrelevant sartorial details?), Lim explained how this was her first experience of writing for children, and described it as her most joyful book.

She was approached to write a children's book by R. Ramachandran, the director of the Singaporean Book Development Council who realised that most of the children's books available in Singapore are published in the West, and she says that being seen for the first time that someone had seen her as a local writer rather than as a "transplanted writer" (she has lived in the US for 40 years) and that touched her in a way she hadn't felt before.

She set out to write the book without any idea about who would publish her, was turned down by publishers including Marshall Cavendish, but at the no point lost faith in the value of her work. In the end Maya Press took the gamble, except, says Lim laughing, it isn't even a gamble because they will lose money on it.

She said that she was retelling a story that had meant a lot to her as a young girl and it took her back to her earliest memories of Malacca (which she jokingly calls "Blackbird Town" because the Singaporeans turn up there singing "Cheap! Cheap!").

She talked about how she used to go up St. Paul's Hill to study, sitting by the open windows in the ruined church to read and study so that there is a great deal of Malacca in herself :

... malacca air, malacca breezes, malacca particles

Pricess Shawl borrows elements of traditional fairytale writing. There is a quest - the child Mei Li is given the quest of rescuing princess Hang Li Po exiled to the island of pulau tikus and unable to come to Malacca to marry the Sultan. And like many children's books, Princess Shawl involves time travel. Lim actually describes the book as a kueh lapis* story because it goes back and forward between layers of time, visiting the time of the Baba-Nyonya's, the Dutch Colonial war, the Portuguese period and the defeat of the Malacca Sultanate, the botton layer of the cake being the C15th.

The character of Great Aunty Mei Li, Lim says was based on the much admired lawyer, P.J. Lim - one of Lim's childhood heroines. The book itself is layered so that there are references in there that an adult reader would appreciate - as Lim puts it, she's smuggled in plenty about the diaspora Chinese. (The book is in the process of being translated into Chinese in Taiwan.)

To write the love story between Princess Hang Li Po and her Sultan, Lim said that she went back to reread Jane Eyre! She also seems to have had delicious fun making the good women get younger, and the bad women get older!

The question time opened into a nice discussion about local children's books (we agreed - too many have beautiful illustrations but the content is very weak indeed), Singapore's generous support for its children's writers, and the origins of Malay legends.

I was intrigued by her attitude to publication: she said that she never worried about whether her work is published or not as long as it is out in the world, and she had a lovely quote from Indian author Shashi Tharoor to show what she means:

I write, as George Bernard Shaw said, for the same reason a cow gives milk: it is inside me, it has got to come out, and in a real sense I would die if I could not.

She talked about writing "heuristically" and her advice to writers :

You learn what you have to say as you write - if you don't surprise yourself, you won't write anything interesting.

We had a nice social time after that. It was nice to meet John of Maya Press and Mr. Law King Hui, the poor organiser of the KL Bookfair who had to change all his banners and posters because of me! (See here and here.) Aiyoh, I felt so shamefaced that I caused so much trouble, but he was astonishingly sanguine about it.

Also had a nice chat to Prof Kayum - am seriously thinking a writing a thesis of some kind on the Malaysian novel. (How long have I been saying that for? My life is full of unrealised projects.)

Had a giggle with Phek Chin and Raman about an entry in the new The Complete Residents' Guide to Kuala Lumpur which describes in Raman, in it's section on bookshops, as the "charismatic" owner of Silverfish. (Not grouchy, huh???)

Then dinner with Daphne and Priya to think up some nice pieces of literary activism and exchange all our gossip.

* A traditional Malacca rice flour cake which is made in layers and very time consuming to produce.
** Actually Tharoor wrongly attributes this - the original quote is from Henry Louis Mencken : his exact words:

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

But I think there's something wrong with you as a writer if you don't have that feeling so no wonder others since have appropriated it!

Shirley's Back!

Author Shirley Geok-lin Lim will be back in town to read from and talk about her new book, a young-adult* novel called Princess Shawl, launched in April in Hong Kong.

The book launch and reading will take place on Saturday, 14th June 2008 at 5.30 pm at Silverfish Books, 58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur (Tel: +603-228 448 37).

The book is described as :

... an intriguing story of the legendary Princess Hang Li Poh, who was married off to the Malaccan Sultan Mansur Shah, as a gift from the Chinese Emperor.

*Raman says some of his customers seem confused about this - a young adult novel is one aimed at older teenagers.

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?

Blue Shoes and Silverfish

Saras came by yesterday bearing the gift of a copy of Silverfish New Writing 7, in which her short story Invisible appears. (Some of you will have heard it when she last read at Seksan's.) There are also stories by Wena Poon (in next Saturday's line-up), and Yusof Martin , Robert Raymer, Viren Swami, Peter Brown and others. The collection is this time edited by South-African academic Ashraf Jamal, and Shanti Moorthy (whom I suddenly realised I had met ... she's the daughter of a very dear friend of my husband's. Small world, huh.)

If there's anyone whose story is included would like to read at Seksan's, please let me know, okay?

The cover by those amazing malay boys (Sufian Abas and Ruhayat X) is so nice, especially so as I recognise Saras' house and my friends in the moody sepia photo!

And talking about Sufian Abas, his new book Kasut Biru Rubina (Rubina's Blue Shoes) is now out, and can also be bought from Silverfish. Here's the blurb and it sounds intriguing :

A woman wakes up without her body. A boy tries to endure the pain of being an adult when mini animals start to come out of his anus. What do you do when angels forgot to bring a unicorn for your daughter's birthday? And are all shoes evil or just the blue ones?

Many of the characters in Kasut Biru Rubina want to live ordinary lives. But the unexpected happen. Brief, shocking, and full of lies that can only come from the twisted mind of Nigerian scammers, Sufian Abas' stories are snapshots that illuminate the strange hidden in a world we never want to live in.

Sufian will also be reading at Seksan's this Saturday.

The Wannabe Parent

When does an (outwardly) perfectly normal, peaceful-looking individual become a parent from hell?

Raman muses on the Silverfish website, before launching into yet another* wannabe horror story, this time about a parent who wants his daughter published ... even before she's written a word.

Then he said, "Unless you are deaf, dumb and blind, everyone knows how much money JK Rowling makes."

Oh God! Not another one!

"How many JK Rowlings, are there?"

"One." He looked puzzled.

"What is the population of the world?"

"I don't know ... several billions."

"So, the chances of your daughter becoming another JK Rowling is one in several billions. Now, if you go downstairs and buy a lottery, the chances of you winning the first prize is one in three million. Wouldn't that be much better?

Now I love it when people say they want to write and will do my best to encourage them, but expecting that you can become the next big thing without putting in the time and effort it takes to get there is totally unrealistic.

And it amazes me that many of the people I've met who say they want to write don't want to swallow the most basic piece of advice of all - if you want to write something worth publishing, you must read widely and hungrily. There is no shortcut. Sorry.

If you don't want to do this, take up quilting or grow bonsai trees or something like that. You'll probably be much happier.

(*A couple of my own are here and here.)

Essayists at Silverfish

Amir Muhammad, the well known typing error, and fellow essayists Brian Yap, Aminuddin Mahmud, Saharil Hasrin Sanin will be reading and signing copies of New Malaysian Essays 1 this afternoon (5.30 - 7.30) at Silverfish Books, 58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, 59100.

(I will not be around either for this or the poetry slam tonight as I am off down to Malacca for Mrs. Malaprop's retirement/ birthday party.)

Amir says that the book can now be purchased only at Kinokuniya KLCC (which I am told is displaying it very nicely) and Silverfish in addition to the online store Kinibooks, which leaves me bemused since I've been told that MPH will be distributing it. I guess we'll only know when we see it on the shelves! it appears to be on the shelves already.

Good Things on Other Blogs

The latest literary gossip from local bloggers:

Is Kafka Austrian or Czech? Raman recounts a diplomatic tug of war and writes about Milan Kundera's new book The Curtain (which I was tempted to buy when I slipped into Silverfish yesterday ... such is the power of blog reviews.)

MPH Bookstores blog Redwhitespot has sadly gone under just as it was beginning to get interesting with some of May Lee's posts. I think the name had bad feng-shui and wanted to warn them, as it always made me think of a pimple. (So sorry!) May Lee and Rodney and the rest - if you feel the need for a space to blog, feel free to tumpang a space here.

Talking of MPH though, super-editor Eric Forbes has a nice post which talks about how book reviewers are developing in Malaysia - and I have to agree with him and he ties this to reviews of James Wood's essays which now I have to buy. (Expensive business, reading other book blogs.)

Eli James of Novelr wrestles valiantly with the question of purple prose.

I've not been very good at turning up for events organised by other people, much to my shame. I sincerely apologise to the folks who would like to have seen me there. I'm grateful to those who give me a vicarious glimpse of what went on, including Ted (left) who posted pictures of last months Katasuara at Raja Ahmad's gallery. Jordan Macvay (spelt right!) writes about being part of Bernice's Ceritaku storytelling event.

I've always has a great phobia of dentists, and when I can avoid 'em I do. Deepika had a very special "dentist" take a look at her teeth during a panel discussion which she was moderating at the Galle Literary festival in Sri Lanka: it was none other that Vikram Seth! (See photo right.) In his round up of festival events, Nury Vittachi tells the story :

At one point, he (Vikram) told an entertaining story about a relative who was a one-armed dentist. To illustrate the challenges involved, he put his arm around the head of moderator Deepika Shetty and duly inspected her back molars. ... What the author didn’t know – but many of the rest of us did – was that Singapore journalist Ms Shetty has just completed a lengthy dental treatment which involved carrying around a quarter of a ton of metal in her mouth for more than a year. Thus his good reports about her dentition carried great weight.

Postscript :

Oops. How did I forget to say welcome to the new Kakiseni blog?