George Town Literary Festival

Exciting news for book lovers in Penang - the first George Town Literary Festival, organised by Bernice Chauly, features a line-up of Farish Noor, Tan Twan Eng, Shih-Li Kow and Iskandar Al-Bakri.  You can read more on the festival blog.

Up Penang Hill with Twan Eng

Whenever Hayato Endo, the Japanese aikido master and consular officer at the center of Tan Twan Eng's WW II–era novel The Gift of Rain, needs cardio (and a break from the stresses of international espionage), he hikes up Penang Hill. He forgoes the funicular because he wants "to feel the climb." Follow his three-hour tropical trudge from the Penang Botanic Gardens past British colonial mansions to the 2,723-ft. (833 m) summit, and every aching muscle in you will feel it too. The reward is a breathtaking view of Georgetown and the piratical Strait of Malacca. At the outdoor coffee shack 30 minutes below the peak, ask resting Chinese or Tamil retirees how often they make the climb. Should caffeine fail to boost you to the top, their answer will be the kick in the butt you've needed.


Tim Kindseth on 25 (More) Authentic Asian Experiences in Time.  The Gift of Rain is a great book for putting Penang (and hence Malaysia) on the map.

Twan Eng is interviewed on Eric's blog.  The author describes himself at the moment as :

... irritable, anxious, distracted, exhausted and tense ...

because he is trying to finish the first draft of his second novel. But he still finds time to talk at great length about the books he loves, and why reading is important. There are some great book recommendations here.

The novel has now been translated into many different language, but how often do we think about the translators or the stories about the translations? Here's a fascinating insight into how The Gift of Rain  into  came to be translated into Romanian. Translator Madalina Serban calls the novel :

... a story that transcends cultures and it relates to a very special part of my life.

MPH's Two-Way Tie and Other Stories

I guess most of you had forgotten all about the MPH-Alliance Short Story Competition. After all, the shortlist was revealed way back in July.

Well, the prize-giving was held on Saturday at Subang Parade, and I guess that everyone was surprised because it was a two-way tie between Booker-longlisted author Tan Twan Eng and complete newcomer, Ivan Yeo Mun Kit.

I was one of the six judges for the competition, and let me tell you that there was plenty of lively debate about all the shortlisted stories - but the panel was completely split over which one should win outright, hence the compromise. The sponsors were kind enough to donate one more top of the range laptop, and the prize-money was shared.


Left to right above : Ivan, Twan Eng's mum - Sally Tan, guest Mano Maniam who gave a very good speech on the importance of stories, Datuk Dr. Abdullah b Abdul Rahman, Director of the MPH Group of Companies, runner-up Shih-Li Kow, Zed Adams father (?), and Lee Eeleen. The other runner up, Vincent Foo Hiap Khian, could not attend the event - he lives in Sarawak and we were told that he is over-70. (So -hurray - it isn't just about young writers making a fiction debut.)

Tan Twan Eng's Some Things Will Remain is a heart-stopping drama in which a woman is forced into murder to keep her child, and its terrible climax contrasts sharply with the traquility and beauty of the setting. It asks important questions too about whether such a killing can ever be justified, and whether a person is ever truly able to make amends.

Ivan Yeo Mun Kit is a writer I am sure we will be hearing much more from in future after this promising start. All the judges loved the humour and the carefully observed detail in this story of a young man learning to drive and juggling the relationship with his “not girlfriend”. Ivan has a strong voice and has a great ear for dialogue. His characters were very well drawn. There was some disagreement among the judges about whether we liked the ending though. (But then disagreement is what makes the whole process interesting!)

I won't say any more here about the other stories beyond that I hope these writers will be encouraged to keep writing. (And I hope that others who didn't make the shortlist won't despair, there were some excellent near-misses, and other writers who show a lot of promise.)


The prize for the Teen category which went to the best story on the theme of Staying and Leaving went to Emily Jong. Again, congrats to all prize winners and I hope we are hearing more about you all soon.

It was nice to reconnect with friends at the event. Below is Shih-Li Kow who came with her son Jack, talking to Lim Soon Heng who was one of the judges of the teen prize. I also enjoyed meeting the members of Electric Minds Project, who put on an entertaining and well-acted sketch for us.


The biggest congrats of the day I think must go to MPH for organising this very much needed competition to give local writers something concrete to aim for, and to Alliance Bank for supporting it. I do hope it returns next year!

Pictures of the "Poppies"

So here's more about the Popular Bookstore Reader's Choice Awards a couple of days back. (I posted results here.)


Nominees Brian Gomez, Amir Muhammad, Adeline Loh during the speeches. The guest of honour was YM Professor Diraja Ungku Abdul Aziz bin Ungku Abdul Hamid, former Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Malaya. He spoke among other things about the necessity of using Malay for all subjects on the school curriculum and the need to vastly expand the translation of scientific texts into Malay.

The welcome address was delivered by Mr. Vangatharaman Ramayah, Director of Popular Holdings Limited who talked about the history of the bookstore and its broad reach in the Asia Pacific region (it has a total of 129 retail stores and is currently expanding into Myanmar).

Then it was time for each of the nominated titles to be highlighted on the screen above with a brief biodata of each author. My favourite moment though came when the MC had to read out the name of Brian Gomez' blog in this august company!


Then the results were read out in nail-biting reverse order. The first prize winners for the fiction and non-fiction categories won RM1,500 each and a trophy, while second prize winners received RM1,000 and third prize winners RM500.

Above, Tan Twan Eng's mum, Sally (in pink), receiving his award from Ungku Aziz on her son's behalf since he is in South Africa.

A group photo of all the winners in or their representatives. (Though I think some at the edges got squashed out. Apologies.)

A more informal shot afterwards - June Wong (Star executive editor) holds a copy of Adibah Amin's Glimpses, Robert Raymer (red shirt - behind her); Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad holds a copy of Dr Mahathir's Selected Letters to World Leaders which he co-wrote with the former PM; Vangatharaman Ramayah (in the black suit), Director of Popular Holdings Limited; Sally Tan (the lady in pink); Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd executive director Lim Lee Ngoh (holding Preeta's book) ; and last but not least, Kee Thuan Chye holding his copy of March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up.

I was very happy for Robert, winning the fiction category, as I know that this will be important encouragement for him. He looked scrape-me up-off-the-floor-it-can't-be-happening-surprised at the result.

Congrats to Popular books and to the sponsoring newspapers for creating a buzz about Malaysian books and involving readers. This is a very worthwhile event. I must say, though, that I would really welcome an award given by a panel of judges in addition to this popularity contest. (Mind you, there is no literary award without at least some controversy and there is always bound to be disagreement about the results.)

The important thing about any literary award is the conversation it creates, and the recognition and encouragment it gives writers. The "Poppies" succeeded very well on both counts.

(More at The Star.)

Persistence

Getting published by foreign-based major players is a big challenge for Malaysian writers because unlike countries such as India, we do not have many prominent writers whose works have been published or translated for an international audience. ... You need to be persistent and willing to accept criticisms. Once you find a willing publisher, you must put your ego aside and be ready to go out and convince bookstores to carry your book. You really cannot just leave it to the publisher’s marketing department or your agent. ... In an ideal world, if your book is good, it will sell itself but this isn’t an ideal world — no one will come knocking unless you tell them what you have.

Tan Twan Eng in The Star's Metro North dispenses advice, and talks about his love for Penang and his next novel, set in Cameron Highlands and due to be published next year.

Salil's Article Made Accessible!

Last month I told you about Salil Tripathy's essay on the political imagination and literature of Malaysia and Singapore being published in Indian journal Biblio. The piece was behind subscription so I don't think many (if any) of you read it. You can now find a (in his words) shorter, tighter version of it at Global Asia. Please do go take a look because it would be great if we could stir up some discussion on it!

Trivial Love?

Love is sometimes thought a theme too trivial to be tackled, especially by male writers, one better left to women.

Louis Nowra in the Australian looks at the prejudice against love as a theme in literary fiction, noting that :

Recently a reviewer summed up many academics' distaste for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's superb novel Love in the Time of Cholera as "an attempt by the author to broaden his appeal by concentrating on the universal and soft subject of love". Irene Nemirovsky's novel Suite Francaise appalled J.M. Coetzee. In a recent issue of The New York Review of Books he criticises the author for writing about love instead of concentrating on World War II as a time of "conquest and extermination aimed at wiping certain despised people from the face of the earth and enslaving others".

I remember being quite aghast that Vikram Seth's wonderful A Suitable Boy never got within a sniff of the Booker and neither did the Louis de Berniere's Captain Corelli's Mandolin (which I'm sorry, I keep waxing lyrical about!) though both went on to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Someone I mentioned this apparent oversight to sniffed "Yes, well of course. They are both love stories."

Therefore by implication not to be taken as seriously??

I am, I'm afraid a sucker for love stories, although not the cheesy cliched Mills & Boon happily ever after things. It only works when the reader cares deeply for both characters in the relationship.

De Berniere's book has two great big heart wrenching love stories, one gay, one straight. Seth's A Suitable Boy pits the sensible suitor against the romantic lover. My Malaysian book loving friends (college colleagues all) told me I was looking at love in a hopelessly Western way when I wanted Kabir to win Lata's hand, and that Asians were invariably more pragmatic about affairs of the heart. (Honestly, they said that!) But I was heartened to find the author agreed with me when I heard him speak in Bali.

Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain is a passionate love story, but made the Booker list - perhaps because the central relationship was so subtly handled? (Some not so clued in readers actually missed it!)

Well, what great literary romances have warmed the cockles of your own hearts? And what do you think of Nowra's observation about the most significant literary love stories coming from male authors?

Our Authors Sparkle on the Christmas Tree

I have decided to completely rewrite this post to foreground the happy news that came in since my first attempt at it!

You know that Christmas is near when the Best of Year lists start to appear, and a selection of writers and politicians recommend the best reads of the year at the Guardian here, here and here.

Preeta Samarasan's Evening is the Whole Day is nominated as one of the best books of the year in the Guardian list by novelist Ann Tyler! Then on the Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year List, no other than Ali Smith chooses it, saying of the novel :

Preeta Samarasan’s debut novel, Evening Is the Whole Day (Fourth Estate), was largely ignored this year both by the press and the longlist/shortlist makers. I found it a good, strong, spirit-spiked story about caste and unfairness, as furious, controlled, cool and urgent as Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, and an introduction to a writer whose talent with narrative structure combines elegance and potency.

Another end of year list of best books of 2008, this time from Bookmarks Magazine via Amazon's Kindle site, and there is Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain!!!

Congrats to both!!

We're Doing Something Right!

(Malaysian literature is) going through a period of growth at the moment, thanks not only to writers but also to those working in the background: organisers of monthly book readings in the city, poetry performances, and creative writing classes. Many of these people run these events for the love of it. There are more platforms now for a writer’s work to be seen, heard, read and, consequently, they have spurred more people to write, to create. ... I also feel that there’s a generation of younger people who no longer feel they must enter the traditional professions of their parents: doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers. Credit should also be given to these parents, who are strong and brave enough to allow their children the space and freedom to be writers, film-makers, playwrights, dancers.

Tan Twan Eng talks about Malaysia's developing writing community, his influences, Anwar Ibrahim, and much else in this interview with Paul Mozar of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

(Above the Serbian translation ...)

Postscript :

Another interview - this time from the WaterBridge Review (a journal of Pacific Rim literature) which gives more insight into the man behind the author.

Debut Asian Fiction on NPR

Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain is reviewed alongside Mosquito by Roma Tearne, a novel set in Sri Lanka are reviewed on America's National Public Radio (NPR). You can listen to the broadcast here.

(More about Roma Tearne here.)

Current Bestsellers at MPH

Isn't it nice to see Malaysian novels doing well on the best seller lists locally? This is the fiction list for MPH :

1. PS, I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

2. The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

3. The Host by Stephenie Meyer

4. Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Gift for Reading Groups

The website ReadingGroupGuides is a very good resource for book clubs and readers (and one presumes students of literature) providing lists of probing and interesting questions intended to take discussion of books to a new level. (I use the site quite a bit when preparing for our own book club meetings.)

A new addition to the site is a guide to Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain. My favourite question is No. 16 which really gets to the heart of it :

What are some examples of crossing lines, defying taboos in search of love? Is there any suggestion that Endo-san’s and Philip’s relationship is taboo? (See pp.186-7). Some of the swordplay imagery is highly suggestive. Do you think the sexual implications are purely metaphorical? (See pp. 305-308)

It was "the chopstick scene" that provided my own moment of truth ...

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 ...

A Quick Burst of Pride

... for our Malaysians published overseas.

Twan Eng passed me a copy of The Elliott Bay Book Company's Review of Books for Spring 2008 (left)* which has one review stacked on top of the other "striking debut" novel. Both Twan and Preeta read at the bookstore, within a week of each other. Preeta describes it as

... a wonderful independent bookstore -- miles and miles of books!

and fills me with envy that I can't hop over there and see for myself. She also says that she enjoyed meeting Rick Simonson, who wrote both reviews.

Evening is the Whole Day is reviewed by Lim Soon Heng in Time Out (right)* this month :

Samarasan has successfully written perhaps the best English language novel from our shores ...

says he.

(My interview with Preeta appears in the next issue of Quill, and will be online later.)

But I'm actually raising this cheer for a hatrick of authors. Am now completely hooked by Chew-Siah Tei's Little Hut of Leaping Fishes - and it's magical!

Chew-Siah's novel will be out next month. Preeta's novel is now out in both the US and due to be published in the UK next month, so expect it in the shops some time soon. Twan Eng's book should be here in mass-market paperback very soon.

(* Click to bring the pages up to full size.)

Twan Eng Booktour

Another Malaysian author goes stateside to promote a novel.

Now that the American edition of The Gift of Rain is out, Tan Twan Eng is doing the bookstore and media rounds over there, and Rick Simonson of Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle gives an account of Twan Eng's first US reading on the Publisher's Weekly website.

We're Cool ... It's Official!

Who's cool in KL?

We are! Readings@Seksan, Readings@NoBlackTie, I mean. And now it's official because we've been given the Time Out Kuala Lumpur stamp of approval!

Here's what they wrote about us in an article about all the "hot new trends that make KL Cool" :


Lim Soon Heng has long run the book meetings (now called the Lit Addicts meet) at MPH Megamall, writes about the night Tan Twan Eng came to talk about The Gift of Rain with readers. The article is written from a very different angle and provides some very interesting insights into the book.

I've always been a fan of Time Out London, and buy it almost as soon as I land at Heathrow, but it's is extra-specially nice to see my adopted city given the same treatment.

Quill in Orbit

The latest edition of MPH's Quill magazine is out, complete with astronaut on the cover and some good content which editor Eric has listed here. The magazine is free to MPH card members and RM8 for non-members.

Tan Twan Eng's article about how to get an agent and improve the chances of your book being published is absolutely invaluable to anyone who plans to take that route.

I also loved Preeta Samarasan's review of Wena Poon's Lions in Winter :

Poon writes about the Asia I know, and she does so with grace, insight and compassion. In these eleven stories, East and West do not inhabit one dimensional roles - submissive versus dominant, traditional versus modern - but mingle to produce the knotty realities of globalisation.

And of course, Deepika Shetty interviews one of the deities in my literary firmament, Vikram Seth.

I didn't blog about the previous issue because I forgot to pick up my copy until just the other day, and then some poor sales assistant had to dig round in a back room to see if any were left! It was nice to see that the front cover pin-up boys were Amir Muhammad and Shahril Nizam. Much more alluring than the politicians who graced (?) previous issues.

Asian Focus too Narrow

Tan Twan Eng has recently been touring the literary festivals in Australia, Hong Kong and China to promote The Gift of Rain and here tells James Pomfret of Reuters (in a piece that I hope publishers and agents will read!) that he welcomes the growing recognition for Asian writers in the West, but says the spotlight on Chinese writers is a concern since it means that talented Southeast Asian voices were increasingly being overlooked. :

You've seen publishers and even agents opening offices in China ... but they seem to have ignored places like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. ... Obviously, the interest in Asian writing helps somebody like me, but we sort of feel we're on the edge, the outskirts ... A lot of the publishers have no real awareness of Southeast Asia.

He also said that :

... other domestic factors were inhibiting writers in his native Malaysia, including the lack of government support, ethnic tensions and censorship. ... The political situation in Malaysia makes it difficult to write about a lot of things because it's such a multiracial country. You have to be really sensitive to what you say.

And about his nomination for the Booker :

There was a sense of nationalist pride. I was very happy that I could say yes, I'm a Malaysian and on the longlist.

A sense of pride of course for us too.

(Photo from PhotoSA on flickr)

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.

Sharon the Celeb??

No time to blog this morning. I am on TV this morning with Tan Twan Eng for a live show called Venus on NTV7, going out live at 11 a.m. I always panic in front of TV cameras so please don't watch or you will make me nervous.

Then I have a photoshoot for Quill magazine after lunch at a place called the Seapark Brickhouse which looks fun.

Have I arrived at celebritydom? Will I soon be plagiarising my own book of poetry?

Anyway, hope it isn't too much of a bad hair day.

Postscript:

Oops, Dina made me even more famous. If you are looking for that post, you can find it here.