Belgian Poet at Silverfish

Raman just e-mailed me with the news that there is a reading this Saturday 20th August by flemish poet Germain Droogenbroodt who is currently working on a project to translate and publish contemporary Malay poetry. The event is jointly organised by The Belgian Embassy in Malaysia and Silverfish Books.

The reading is from 6.00-8.00pm at 67-1 Jalan Telawi 3, Bangasar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 228 448 37. Admission is free. All welcome.

You can read more about the poet here.

Every Letter a Bullet, Every Word a Bomb

Have been thinking a lot about book banning lately. Wrote a column which will appear in the new men's magazine Chrome in October about censorship of books here in Malaysia. As so often happens when you start to dig up information about a topic, you end up with so much more material than you can ever use when you have a word limit. You might have found a substantial part of the elephant and have opinions on all of it, but you can only write about the left ear!

Is there ever a case for banning books? I'm very much against books being banned, even when they progagate ideas that I personally don't agree with. (The omnipresent and ugly Henry Ford book, for example.)

In Britain books are seldom banned. The last case I can remember was Peter Wright's book Spycatcher which was seen as a challenge to Britain's secrecy laws.

A new challenge to Britain's general policy of openess though, comes from the Islamic bookshops. In an article in The Times dated Sat 23rd July, not long after the attacks which took the lives of 52 commuters, Thair Shaik and Dominic Kennedy reported that they found books promoting suicide bombing, terrorism and anti-semitism openly on sale. Australia has been struggling with the same issue.

Suhayl Saadi, the author of Psychoraag wrote:

In power struggles, every letter is a bullet, every word a bomb. So what might the London bombers have read? When I walk into most “Islamic bookshops”, I am struck by apocalypse. Texts of fire and brimstone abound; books of which John Knox would have been proud. Most such shops are run by miserabilist Islamist organisations.

So what should be done about it in this country which prides itself on freedom of expression?

Says Boyd Tonkin writing in the Independent:

Whole decades can pass between one mention of bookshops by a British prime minister and the next. How sad, then, that Tony Blair should refer to the sale of literature only when he aims to censor it. Bookshops joined websites, mosques and "centres" as sources of infection in last Friday's scattergun statement about measures to root out extremism. One suspects that behind the forgivable anger, and less forgivable confusion, in the government response to Islamist terrorism lies New Labour's lingering distrust of free expression and its trouble-making advocates.

And he goes on:

Soundbite-happy politicians may need tuition in Mr Blair's "culture of tolerance" as much as disaffected Muslim youth. And that tolerance, as even premiers ought to know, can only claim any virtue or valency when it resists heavy pressure. ... The Islamist variant of fascism peddled by those targeted "websites" and "bookshops" will be defeated in the open, if at all.

His conclusion which I must say I agree with:

In the battle of ideas, censorship can only ever win a phoney war.

Over to you!

Not in my Name

Was working hard yesterday reading McEwan's longlisted Saturday at the hairdessers. (Good reading spot apart from the fact that you have to keep blowing away the bits of hair that fall on the pages.) Anyway, the book is set on a single day - Saturday 15th February 2003, the day of the first huge demonstration against the Iraq with more than a million marching in London alone.

I was here, not there, or I would have marched.

A few weeks later, the war started and a second demonstration was held in London on another Saturday: 22nd March, a little smaller (just half a million marchers) and more subdued than the first. This time I was part of the crowd and this is the piece I wrote that day:

My placard is a piece of cardboard rescued from the bin in my sister's house. I haven't written anything profound on it, just ANGRY, BETRAYED. Which is how I feel. Only ANGRY doesn't do justice to this gnawing pain in my guts. INCENSED, would perhaps have been better.

A nice young man helps me to stick my homemade banner with brown parcel tape to a Socialist Worker banner saying STOP THE WAR. Though of course it can't be stopped now it's started, can it? Still it's important to stand up and be counted, to send the message around the world that there is opposition. (And what a joy it is to hear a BBC newscaster say later a propos of the march: "This is still a country deeply divided." The biggest wartime demonstration in this country ever.)

I buy a whistle and a pocket full of badges to give away to the kids: NOT IN MY NAME. Left wing newspapers and flyers are thrust into my hand.

This is my first demonstration. Ever. Middle-aged protest virgin. I'm self-conscious as I take my place behind the other marchers, expecting to feel out of place. But there's a real cross section of people in this march. Many marchers are elderly, some are kids with their parents. There's a real feeling of camaraderie, but the mood is sombre rather than defiant.

Helicopters from the television stations hover overhead. Reporters push among the crowd looking for photo opportunities.

The chanting picks up, and I gingerly join in as I manage to catch the words.

What do we want? Peace. When do we want it? Now. Peace now peace now peace now peacenowpeacenowpeacenow.

We start off late from Gower Street, move slowly down Shaftesbury Avenue, police lining the route. At Picadilly, another river of protesters joins us, moving from the South of the city.

Bush Blair USA. How many kids have you killed today?

It's a glorious spring day. I feel so blessed to be walking through this magnificent city in the sunshine. I'm proud to be among others who care enough about the state of the world to come from all over the country and march. And we're free to do so without the fear of being arrested for dissent against the government. (Believe me, you value this when you live in a country like Malaysia.)

Who let the dogs out? Bush Bush and Blair.

I start up a conversation with a woman named Roz who tells me that she is a veteran of all the marches. She's around my age, and so diminutive that I have to bend sideways to hear her over the noise of the whistles, sirens and chanting, not so easy with my unwieldy banner which has the wind billowing behind it. But I learn that Roz been protesting at Westminster all week, sitting in the road to stop the traffic. She fills me in on all the other protests and demonstrations around the country, and tells me about the thousands arrested in San Fransisco, including the a man who fell or was pushed from the Golden Gate bridge.

1-2-3-4 we don't want your bloody war.



Roz seems to think I'm doing quite well as a protester. Maybe I'll take it up more seriously.

5-6-7-8 stop the killing stop the hate.

We flood into Hyde Park. Thank goodness there are toilets and food stalls set up. I have an improvised picnic of fish cake and soggy chips on the grass and then join the crowd again to listen to speeches. One Welsh Labour MP who voted against Blair gives an eloquent speech about the dangers of American Imperialism. There's a moments silence and the Moslems in the crowd are asked to say the Al-Fateha prayer. Some of the speeches are shallow sloganeering though, and I was unhappy about the Palestinian issue being linked to this protest about war with Iraq so I decide not to stay till the end.

As I leave, I see a field of hands made by children from all over the country. Tiny banners made by drawing around their hands and cutting them out, then decorating them with peace messages. The sight of all those tiny hands and the heartfelt words on them has the tears pricking my eyes.

I trudge up to Bond street to take the tube home. My feet hurt like hell by now, but my heart is lightened.

International Young Publisher of the Year - Update

Several people got in touch with me re. the IYPY award when I first put up the information about it .

The full details of the award and a timetable for the various stages of the contest can be found here, and information about how to apply here.

Wonder if we will find anyone suitable? Truth is, we need folks who fit these criteria if the publishing industry is to take off locally. If not this year then maybe further down the road ...

Maybe awareness that such an annual award exists is a useful first step.

Unhazed, Unfazed.

Woke up to a heart-stoppingly horrible scenario this morning. The Visitor e-mailed me to say that my blog had disappeared and an SMS from DZ to say the same thing. I checked. When I tried myself all I could get was an expanse of whiteness. No words. No nothing. Smogged out.

Fortunately the archives were still there where I'd left them and no posts were missing.

I wrote to the guys at Blogspot and here I am, back again.

But *phew* you realise just how vulnerable you are. I'm lazy at backing up my entries but will make it a priority now.

I love my blog and am not going away any time soon!

The smog outside has gone too. This is the third day of clear skies and there was a huge thunderstorm yesterday to clear the air still further. I've hardly dared believe it.

Booker Bookies

When is a literary prize like a horserace?

Of course, now that the Booker longlist has been announced, the bookmakers are out in force. According to The Guardian:

William Hill's choice as 3/1 favourite was McEwan, who won the award in 1998 with Amsterdam but was unlucky with his more recent bestseller Atonement. It made Barnes a 7/1 chance, below Coetzee and Ishiguro.

But Ladbroke's rated Barnes' story Arthur & George as 4/1 favourite, followed by McEwan at 5/1, Rushdie at 7/1 and the veteran writer Dan Jacobson at 8/1.

Ladbrokes has Tash at 20/1, the same odds as seven of the others on the long list including (to my great surprise!) Ishiguro.

I'm not really one for a flutter, although a horse I backed "both ways" for the Grand National once won and I bought my mum a pot plant with my vast winnings. I'm the woman who walked out of Genting casino having made a RM12 riggit profit on my initial investment of RM10 and haven't been back since. But this year I really think that I might put a little something on the literary gee-gees. (Have already made a wager in margueritas with my book club friends which may end up costing me dearly.)

I wouldn't normally get so excited about the Booker, but this year we have a vested interest, innit?

Of course, it must be a nailbiting time for the first-timers (" ... who add human drama to literary suspense on the list" as Nigel Reynolds wrote in the Telegraph.)

No bigger human drama perhaps than that of Harry Thompson, who was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer just weeks before his book was published in June, according to The Times.

I've enjoyed looking at the postings on the Guardian blog - especially readers' comments on other books that they feel should have been included on the longlist. There seems to be a certain amount of pissed-offness about the same old names (McEwan, Ishiguro, Coetzee, Rushdie) cropping up again and again (are the judges playing safe, or are these guys playing true to form?). The fresh voices on the list seem to be very much welcomed.

An interesting point raised is that a writer taken on by one of the larger publishing houses is actually disadvantaged, since only three books can be submitted by each publisher, regardless of the number of books they put out in a year. Someone else asked whether it is fair to have books on the list which haven't yet been published (i.e. the novels by Rushdie, Meek and Smith). Personally, I don't think so - there's always next year, isn't there?

I very much enjoyed reading Eric Forbes' comments on the contenders. Go take a look.

By the way, I sneaked over to MPH 1 Utama this morning to buy Ali Smith's The Accidental. I didn't think it would be too dangerous a mission because I had already noted its precise location on the shelves so that I could run in quickly, grab it without having any excuse to pick up other books, and pay with the book voucher accrued from all my overbookspending these past few months.

Sadly, I also spotted Margaret Atwood's latest collection of essays and reviews Curious Pursits. How could I just leave it there, especially as she writes so honestly about her own writing process?

Writings from the Diaspora

Where will the best Indian writers come from in future? Read Zafar's take on William Darymple's assertion that the next batch of successful Indian writers in English will emerge from the Diaspora.

My own feeling is that much of the sharpest writing comes from writers who straddle two very different cultures giving them a certain amount of distance and perspective - the ability to see both as insider and outsider at the same time.

Says Zafar:

The fact is the market for Indian (and even African) writing in English is not in India but in America and Europe. It is natural that Indian writers, who have degrees and addresses in London or New York, will succeed as they have better access to literary agents or publishers. Also, the lack of a literary culture in India, especially in centres like Delhi as noted by William, will not be a problem for Indian writers in the West.

True for writers here too, I think.

Chickens and eggs. Chickens and eggs.

How do we grow a literary culture locally?

Answers on a postcard please.

What Are You Reading? Any Good?

Me, I seem to be reading lots of ittle-bittle snatches of things and not reaching the end of anything.

That damn bee book was the exception and that I had to read for the book club meet.

Our next read is Roald Dahl's My Uncle Oswald, which is waiting patiently on my to-be-read-shelf. (With dozens of others.)

I've still got the Edward Carey Observatory Mansions to finish.

Have read most of Alice Munro's excellent short collection Dance of the Happy Shades (one of my warehouse sale purchases!).

Started The Little Friend by Donna Tartt at the hairdressers (should have read it yonks ago) and already I know I'm going to love it.

Am a third of the way through Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist, which I'm sipping slowly because I have to keep reading back over the passages I've enjoyed most ... word drunk, delighted and entertained am I. I picked up the book because I keep reading about Kunzru (bookslamming, d.j.ing, mixing cocktails ... you know, all the things that authors usually do) and it seemed daft not to have read anything by him. Besides .... Nope. I won't tell you. It'll have to be a surprise.

Am also snacking on various books by Scottish writers to find extracts that will work well when read aloud and keep a restless MPH-Saturday-afternoon-walk past audience happy. Trying to find an extract from Irving Walsh's Trainspotting that won't shock all those mums with kids ... may just give up on that one!

Then there's the books for review. Shall put aside Hari for a while to read Saturday. Then there's the couple of novels-in-progress I've promised to read for other people ...

Picked up a pre-loved copy of The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry from Silverfish the other day and am enjoying dipping in in odd moments.

You might think me totally nuts (probably do already) but I love to read poetry aloud ... in the bathroom where the acoustics are good. (Try it and see!)Poetry is three dimensional, but on the printed page only two.

I seem to go through phases with my reading ... times when I can whizz through books, and times like now when I find it hard to concentrate and would so much rather write instead. I suppose that's a blessing of sorts.

Now what are YOU reading? Any good?

Got a Story Looking for a Home?

Leah just sent me news of the Zoetrope: All-Story short-fiction competition which accepts entries from outside the US. Why not give it a go?

Sharpley Road

The council house was spanking new.

My mum was thrilled with the indoor toilet
And plumbed-in bath.
Wanted too a tradesman’s entrance
Round the side.

“Don’t you know my husband’s a professional,” she said
In her special voice that made her sound
Like the queen at Christmas.
To the man who came to sell brushes door-to-door.

My dad swotted for engineering exams
At the kitchen table.

Late summer nights
Light shone still through my bedroom curtains.
I heard kids yelling in the street outside
And envied them.
My parents didn’t like me to play with
The “proles” because
I was not common like them.

A bogey-man lived at number eight.
You had to run fast past his door.
But no-one had ever seen him.

Digging to Australia with a plastic trowel -
Dirt in my finger nails and knots in my hair.
Collected insects in jars.
Earthworms baked in the sun to a crisp
When I forgot them.

Awoke with night terrors -
Big yellow eyes in the ceiling of my room
And the scream frozen in my throat.

There was hell to pay
If I got fingerprints on the furniture,
Mum’s paid-for-on-the-never-never
Georgian repro stuff.

Opened doors for my sister who didn’t
Want to crawl like other babies but
Shuffled on her bum.

My father read me Alice in Wonderland
And The Water Babies
(With Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.)
Told me his stories of Malaya
Repairing bridges, rebuilding roads
R&R in Penang.

Playing Oranges and Lemons
In the road
(Chip chop the last man’s -).
And a ring game
One golden afternoon:
Simple Sally sitting on the sand.
My baby sis in the centre
Wearing a blue sunhat.

Speeding up and down the road on my scooter
Making neenaw police car noises.
Headquarters in a cardboard box.

Dad taught me to the trick of reading
One weekend.
I added the big words he used
To my store.

Hated frilly dresses
The feel of nylon party frocks
My favourite dress was brown and had fringing on the bodice
Like a Red Indian squaw.

We thought our washing had been stolen from the line
One morning.
Walked down to the phone booth with Dad
(Press Button A Button B)
To call the police.
Later found a neighbour
Had taken our clothes in at dawn
Because it looked like rain.

Watch With Mother
(Rag Tag and Bobtail, The Woodentops)
Was never
Watched with my mother
Who had a house to clean.

Riding on the upper deck of the bus to town
Turning over the Victorian pennies,
The Georges and Edwards in my father’s change.
Wondering at the strangeness of the past.

Told mum about next door’s dog
Enjoying bones I’d taken round.
“Licking her chops,” I said
Repeating my neighbour’s words.
Felt the full weight of her flailing fists
As she drove home her point:
“We speak proper English in this house.”

Dad walked me to school,
And at the gate wiped breakfast
From my mouth,
Cleaned sleep-encrusted eyes
With spit on his handkerchief.

One day when I refused to eat
Mum pushed my face down
Into my dinner
And mashed potato filled my nose.

Learned how to freeze time
One day
By as a simple effort of will.
Focused
Eyes shut
“I will always remember this moment.”

And have.


© Sharon Bakar 2005

My Ideal Job

Oh, to just be able to read all day and get paid for it! Think I just found my ideal job. "Reader-in-Residence". Is it any wonder that I envy Susan Tranter who holds this post for The British Council?

Her work (and yes, I guess she has to do something other than read, sadly!) includes writing reviews (check out her books of the month - there are some excellent recommendations here if you are stumped for what to read next!), taking part in in regular online discussions, compiling quizzes, and dispensing advice on reading, readers’ groups and the book world in general.

The Encompass website also features an author interview each month which gives readers a chance to get close to writers, by putting their own questions to them. From the website:

This month it's the turn of best-selling travel writer and novelist William Dalrymple. His travel books In Xanada, City of Djinns, From the Holy Mountain and The Age of Kali have been acclaimed by readers and critics alike. His most recent book, White Mughals ('a brilliant and compulsively readable book' according to Salman Rushdie), is soon to be turned into a stage play by the National Theatre.

If you want to play interviewer, send in questions for William by Friday 19th August. You can ask about his books, his writing career, perhaps his enduring fascination with India - or anything else! You can read interviews with previously featured writers including A.L. Kennedy, Alain de Botton, Hari Kunzru, Ali Smith and Toby Litt on the website. Good stuff.

Smoggier Still ...

The "haze" a.k.a. the smog from hell is worse still today. According to The Department of the Environment, the API here in Petaling Jaya is 349.

I was joking about API's over 500 yesterday ... but it has hit 529 in Klang and 531 in Kuala Selangor.

It was the first item on the BBC news broadcast just now. There was Jonathan Kent telling the world that a state of emergency has been declared.

Really?

I turned to the local TV stations. Programming as usual. No news flashes or alerts. Shouldn't they be keeping the country constantly updated? Or shouldn't there be at least a ticker thingy running across the bottom of the screen?

This news from Forbes.

The place to turn is you want breaking news is Project Petaling Street where Malaysian bloggers ping their latest entry.

Here are a few of the latest haze pings just to give those of you who live far away a taste of what living under a pall of smoke is like. (If you live in the Klang Valley you'll probably want to entertain yourselves elsewhere, I don't blame you.)

Fashion Asia invites you to see the view for yourself; PapiMami talks of panic buying in the supermarkets; Paul Tan posts a satellite picture of the plume of smoke from Sumatra heading our way; Suanie provides lyrics for some great patriotic haze songs if you've got any breath left to sing; and Perpetual Rush wants a leopardskin surgical mast (we must be gaya even as we choke to death, see?)

But the most brilliant idea comes from Haze Haters who is inviting everyone to send in their photos of the "haze" for an online photo petition. He's had some entries already.

The Malay Mail today offered some tips on how to stay healthy including

* Women should consider covering the head with a scarf.

One wonders why only women and not both sexes, unless the writer had another agenda.

But how about this as a way to beat the haze?



Photo of Erik Fearn from Jeff Ooi.

Postscript:

Some very funny haze jokes from Midnight Lily . Gotta laugh or you'd cry, innit?

Wah!!!! Tash Got Longlisted!!!!!!!!

Goodness, this is my fourth post today. (Do I think I'm blogathonning or something?) But this news just could not wait.

Of course, today is a saints' day for bibliophiles. The Man Booker longlist was announced just a few minutes ago.

And our Tash is on it!

Here's the full list. The Guardian had this to say about the selection. And here's Boyd Tonkin's take on it in The Independent.

Okay ladies and gentlemen, place your bets. Who is going to make it to the shortlist? (I've already placed mine, but not telling. Is there a bookie around?)

Just picked up a copy of Saturday to review today and intend to buy the Ali Smith next trip to MPH. That'll do for starters.

One Apocalyptic Afternoon

They call it "haze". Euphemistically.

The air thick with smoke from fires burning in that legendary "neighbouring country" we're all too polite to name.

So thick that the traffic lights are on at midday along the expressway, and I can hardly see the buildings on the other side. The sun an orange ball, sick and unreal.

he streets and open-air cafes are deserted. Shop doors firmly closed. Folks scuttle indoors as quickly as they can. The cautious ones wearing face masks.

I'm sneezing, my eyes sting.

Indoors, with windows shut, the smell of burning still.

Someone on the e-group says that the air pollution index (for too long classified information although now apparently we're permitted to know) reached 410 in Klang at noon. Way past hazardous. 500 is emergency. Or does it mean you're dead?

My husband tells me to leave the country. He wants Malaysia to declare war. ("I'm serious." He is. I'm glad he never entered politics.)

Someone on the e-group suggests a petition.

Someone else suggests this has become Mordor. There should be Orcs running around.

Someone else declares that the end of the world is at hand now that the winged-chariot space shuttle has landed.

This apocolyptic afternoon.

Only rain can help, but when will rain come? No real rain expected till October.

Can't they seed a cloud?

Just drink more water, stay indoors, eat cucumbers. The usual drill. You've been here before. Almost every year. Don't get dramatic about it. You'll live.

Or have we just grown so used to this that we treat it just as another season of the year? We who have no seasons but monsoon and heat and musim buah might perhaps relish the variety? Or perhaps we'd like our fish from Klang ready-smoked?

Celebrating Scotland

British Council is organising a Celebrate Scotland month from 15 August to 16 September 2005 with plenty of exciting stuff happening.

Theatre Babel will be performing Macbeth at the KL Performing Arts Centre and you will also be able to catch the Macbeth in the Shadows Wayang Kulit performances.

I'm involved with the library displays and readings from selected Scottish authors’ works at MPH Bookstore, 1-Utama Shopping Centre on Sept 3rd. It should be fun!

There's more ... much more ... screening of a Scottish film, storytelling, sonnet writing for schoolkids, bagpipes ...

And there's an online competition where you stand to win a trip to Scotland and other prizes. It's all on the website. Go take a peek! .

Malaysia in a Nutshell?

Malaysia is an extremely complex country ... and to simplify the social and political landscape for outsiders is no easy task.

You've probably seen this article by Jonathan Kent, our local BBC correspondent already, since it got passed on on e-groups and by e-mail.

It struck a chord with me. Malaysia has a rich heritage and the loss of traditional arts and culture I find heartbreaking.

And I thought these lines telling:

"All we can do these days is tut tut at one another," a Malay friend tells me.

Across the country one sees the evidence of a culture of disapproval.

Would love to know your thoughts.

The Buzz on the Bee Book

Last night wonderful food and booktalk at Jessica's. Gene Girl's choice under scrutiny this month: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. (Though Gene Girl herself was missing in action.)

The synopsis from Monk Kidd's website:

In this New York Times bestseller, a young girl's search for the truth about her mother leads her to three beekeeping sisters who take her into their mesmerizing world of bees and honey and of a mysterious Black Madonna. A novel about mothers and daughters and the women in our lives who become our true mothers. A story about the divine power of women and the transforming power of love.

As sweet and sticky as the book it describes!

The group was pretty much divided between the yes-I-enjoyed-its and the no-I-couldn't-stand-its. Our only guy, Kumar, hated it - described it as "oestrogen-soaked" and said it "bored the crap" out of him. (Kumar is fast becoming master of the soundbite.)

I found it a nice, relaxing read to begin with, though thought the humour a little forced. I like the characters, particularly 'The Calendar Sisters' who take Lily in. But the book sags horribly towards the end and I found myself skimming the last third just to get to the end quickly. (As someone said last night "I wanted the Klu Klux Klan and some lynching.") I also found the feminine solidarity theme utterly cloying.

This is Hallmark Channel stuff. (Can just see Oprah and Whoopie Goldberg playing leading parts.) It drips honey and niceness and feel-goodness, but never gives us a convincing account of the inner life of its protagonist.

I think the book might appeal rather more to teenagers, although a much better read would be Carson Mc Cullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

New Life for the Novel

Jason Cowley, a former Booker Prize judge, reckons that this is the best year yet for British fiction since the prize began in this piece from today's Observer.

The Booker longlist is announced on Wednesday! Have got lots of catch-up reading to do.

The Untold Story

My telephone interview with Jung Chang and Jon Halliday in The Star today, alongside a review of their new books Mao: The Unknown Story by Phar Kim Beng.

Jung Chang’s new book (co-written with historian husband, Jon Halliday) grew from her own unanswered questions about the man who had so profoundly influenced her own life. “I didn’t know what he did exactly or how he came to power and I wanted to find out,” she says in a telephone interview. The couple found out a great deal more than they bargained for and Mao: The Unknown Story is the result of more than ten years of painstaking research.
.
“I didn’t know that there was this much new material,” says Chang “One piece of research just lead to another.” Chang carried out the research in China while Halliday, did the non-Chinese research. They delved into foreign archives and interviewed more than 100 people who had known Mao personally including members of his family, former colleagues and staff, heads of state and leading political figures. It was a process that was exhausting and both suffered from serious health problems along the way.

Their research turned up many surprises along the way. “The biggest shock,” says Chang “was about the great famine. We calculated that thirty-eight million people died. We thought initially that the economy was mismanaged, and that’s what I said in Wild Swans.” They were amazed to learn instead that “Mao had calculated the number of deaths as part of the plan to buy nuclear arms. Few in the world know that Mao’s single-minded pursuit of the weapons. He was ruthless and would not let the death of millions stand in his way.”

Halliday estimates that around 95% of the “really important stuff” they uncovered was from Russia, and he visited the country four times while they were researching the book “One file alone was a quarter of a million pages. There were tens of thousands of pages detailing for example, Mao’s first big purge and how his colleagues tried to leave him behind on the Long March. There were cables between Stalin and Mao towards the end of the civil war. And I got wonderful interviews with people who’d dealt with Mao during the 1950’s including Khrushchev’s interpreter ”

The most difficult archive to access was that of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Halliday says he was surprised at how much closer the relationship was with Russia than had been pretended, “By 1929 Stalin had identified Mao as the guy who was going to win and decided to back him. We were able to document that up to the hilt.”

I tell Halliday that the book has provoked some strong reactions in some of the online forums I’ve been reading. Some have accused Jung and Halliday of having “an obvious bias”. Someone else described the book as “unremittingly negative.’

Halliday seems quite upset by such accusations. “I dislike people saying we acted with ulterior motives. We did not set out with any agenda, just to write a well done comprehensive biography. We did a lot of hard work to get the details right and fair. We set out to answer questions, for example, what were Mao’s political decisions throughout his life? We did uncover a lot of new material and we found that his policy decisions were entirely consistent. We looked hard at everything he said in public and to his inner circle and in her research in China, Jung captured the real Mao.”

“In fact,” he goes on “We would welcome an open debate on the facts. But no-one so far has come up with any evidence to refute what we’ve said.”

Both agree that the success of Chang’s Wild Swans, opened doors for them which would otherwise have remained closed. “People in China were very keen to talk to Jung because she had written Wild Swans. It was thought that the book made people sympathetic to the Chinese. World statesmen were interested and agreed to see us including former presidents and I don’t think any of that would have happened without Wild Swans,” says Halliday.

I tell Chang that for all it’s meticulous research and careful scholarship, this is a surprisingly readable book.

“We tried very hard not to make the book dry,” says Chang adding that it was important to her to add a strong human interest angle. Particularly revealing, she says, is the way that Mao treated his wives with great callousness and indifference. It’s hard not to feel pity for Kai-Hui, Mao’s second wife, who was executed by nationalists in 1930. Chang was able to use a cache of letters that Kai-Hui had hidden behind a roof-beam before she was imprisoned. “She was abandoned with three children and he didn’t lift a hand to save her. He was completely indifferent. He didn’t care about her, the people or the party.”

With their new book poised to blow the myth of Mao apart, do they think that Chinese society is ready to take on a changed view of Mao?

Halliday thinks it unlikely though that the biography be available in China where Mao is still acknowledged as being “30% wrong but 70% right” in official parlance. “But I think China would be a healthier and stronger place if the truth were open to scrutiny. The Chinese have a right to know what happened to their country and I believe that Chinese society is ready to take this on because facing the truth can’t be as hard as living under him.”

“Mao was simply the most anti-Chinese person there’s ever been,” Halliday adds. The book makes a convincing case for that.

I was greatly impressed by the meticulous research that went into the book. Chang and Halliday had access to archives in Mainland China, Russia, Taiwan, Albania, USA, Great Britain, India and Germany. They interviewed over 100 people who knew Mao personally, as well as an impressive list of world leaders (including presidents Bush Snr. and Ford), and major political figues. This is scholarly work ... not the work of a couple who set out merely to grind an axe as some have implied. And it is extremely readable with plenty of human interest on the pages.

If the book is a catalyst for debate reassessment of China's history, then it will have done its job very well indeed.

British Books for Malaysian Schools

This article from today's New Straits Times describes a project initiated by The Centre for British Teachers (an organisation I used to work for, by the way): pupils in schools in rural areas will be receiving books contributed by schools in Britain to encourage the learning of english.

I applaud anyone who puts books in the hands of kids and encourages them to read.

But is it necessary for an overseas agency to do what the government here should really be doing by itself? Is this country so impoverished that it cannot afford to equip its schools adequately to cater for growing minds? Surely books for schools should be among a country's first priorities?

Wouldn't it be nice if the CfBT project could shame the Ministry into releasing adequate funds for every school to have a decent library?