THE MALAYSIAN NOVEL IN ENGLISH

Chuah Guat Eng

1. Introduction
According to Italian literary scholar Franco Moretti, one doesnt have to indeed, cant
read every novel in a particular society or era in order to understand and comment on the
genres development, its evolution as a literary art form, and its social and cultural
dimensions. But how do we talk about novels we havent read and probably will never read?
Well, we can talk about them based on vague impressions, anecdotal hearsay, and
subjective or ideologically-coloured opinions; or, we can talk about them based on facts,
statistics, and documented history. This series is for those who prefer the second
alternative.
In these articles, I will explore the development of the MNE from 1965 to 2014. I have
chosen 1965 as my starting point because that was the year Singapore left the Malaysian
Federation, leaving us the Malaysia we know now, and I stop at 2014 because it is difficult
to talk about developmental trends while they are still unfolding.
My focus is on the social dimensions of the genre, and not on the novels literary aspects.
No attempt will be made to foreground the literary merits of any individual novel. Instead, I
shall discuss developments and trends in three inter-related areas without which no
literature (or any tradition of writing) can exist or be sustained.
These are: the community of writers; the publishing scene; and, the activities undertaken by
society to build up a community of readers.

From lean to global

The 50 years of development being explored are divided into three periods, which I will
examine in detail in future articles. The first, from 1965 to 1993, I call Lean Years because
relatively few novels were published my research shows that only 17 new novels by local
writers were published during those 28 years, all written by men born either well before or
soon after the Second World War.
The theme of the second period, from 1994 to 2003, is New Initiatives And New
Paradigms. In 1994, the MNE landscape changed in some fundamental ways, the full
effects of which became obvious only in the 21st century.
These include the increase in women novelists, the rise of self-publishing (who often utilised
the then-newly available Internet to market their works, and the supportive role of
universities in expanding the community of readers.

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The third period, from 2004 to 2014, is given the title Going Global. During this decade,
we witnessed a sudden and fairly well-sustained increase in the number of new Malaysian
novels published each year.
These new novels were not limited to those written by locally-based Malaysian citizens;
many were by members of the Malaysian diaspora, former Malaysians who had chosen to
be either citizens or permanent residents of other countries, while a few were by
expatriates or foreign nationals residing in Malaysia.
The other global aspect in this decade was the dynamic expansion of Internet-based social
networking applications, which made it possible for writers and publishers to reach
potential readers and book buyers locally and internationally.
The entry of the diaspora writers into the domain of locally-based writers was unsettling in
two ways. On the positive side, the fact that their works had been published by major
international publishing houses and won internationally prestigious literary prizes had a
catalytic effect on the MNE scene.
Locally-based writers were encouraged to take on the challenge of writing novels instead of
short stories, local and regional publishing houses opened their doors to aspiring novelists,
and a number of enterprising individuals were motivated to set up their own independent
publishing concerns.
On the other hand, the propensity of diaspora and expatriate novelists to identify
themselves and their works as Malaysian led to much debate and quite a bit of soul-
searching among locals as to how the term Malaysian novels in English should be defined.
I do not, however, intend to engage in these debates in my articles.
For my purpose, Malaysian novels in English is defined as book-length (min. 75,000
words), single-story, fictional prose narratives published after 1965 and originally written in
English by writers who present themselves (e.g. in interviews and biographical notes) as
having some kind of homeland relationship with Malaysia.
I define this relationship in three ways. The first is the only homeland relationship of those
Malaysians who are born, bred and live here. The second is the former homeland
relationship, that of the Malaysian diaspora. The third is the second homeland
relationship of a foreign national who, for personal or professional reasons, now or in the
past, has made a second home in Malaysia.

2. For a time, publishing was a scary thing to do in Malaysia

Some years ago, I came across a report of an interview with a diaspora writer who had
recently won international acclaim with his first novel. When asked by the local journalist
whether he had been influenced by other Malaysian novelists, he replied that he never
knew there were Malaysians writing novels in English, or words to that effect.

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Even though many English-educated, well-read Malaysians might well have answered in the
same way, his reply didnt endear him to some local writers and critics.
It probably added fuel to the debate in subsequent years about whether literary works by
those who have emigrated should be considered Malaysian.
Yet, to be fair, that novelists response would have been perfectly understandable if he had
left the country in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Between 1965 and 1993, the Malaysian novel in English (MNE) genre could hardly be said to
exist. As far as I know, only 17 new novels by local writers were published during those 28
years. Several reasons for the low productivity have been suggested, all of them plausible;
namely, lack of interest on the part of publishers, lack of support from local readers and an
unfavourable political environment.
Since I shall be discussing the local publishing scene and reading community in the next two
articles, I shall briefly discuss the political environment from my personal perspective
because I cant speak for everyone who lived through that era.
Sometimes, when I hear or read what Malaysians of my generation say about how peaceful
and harmonious the nation was in their youth, I wonder which nation they might be
referring to. In my experience, the 1960s, 70s and 80s were a time of political upheavals,
each one rolling seamlessly into the next: the Malaysian-Malaysia versus Malay-Malaysia

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debates soon after the formation of Malaysia, the May 1969 riots, the student
demonstrations of the 1970s and Operation Lalang in 1987.
Each upheaval brought to the surface issues were still grappling with today. And they
brought in their wake laws that suppressed freedom of thought and expression: the Internal
Security Act 1960, the 1972 Universities and University Colleges Act and the Printing Presses
and Publications Act of 1984. All this was in addition to the colonial-era Sedition Act.
For me, as a young, aspiring novelist, these laws were inhibiting. The Sedition Act was
particularly worrisome because it criminalised the raising of sensitive issues, a term so
vaguely defined that it could mean anything and everything one wanted to write about. On
top of that, there was the nagging feeling that to write in English was somehow to be a
traitor to the national cause and so I made a bonfire of my notes and my dreams of
writing.
But there were those who wrote and, having written, published 13 of them by my count,
and they published 17 novels between them.
Many of you would have heard of Lloyd Fernando and K.S. Maniam, and possibly Lee Kok
Liang. Their novels have been studied by literary scholars for many years and much has been
written about them. Those who have read Zawiah Yahyas Malay Characters In Malaysian
Novels In English (1988) may remember reading about the novels of Johnny Ong, Ewe Paik
Leong, Chin Kee Onn and Mohd Tajuddin Samsuddin.
One would, however, have to search very hard to find out anything about the other novels
because most of them are now out of print and unavailable. Which is a pity, because I would
dearly love to be able to read or at least talk about M.P. Chelvams Salem, set in Kedah
during World War II; T.J. Anthonys The Search, about the May 1969 riots; B.C.
Bhattacharjees The Immigrant, about Indian immigrants in Malaya from 1906 to 1945; and
Alex Lings Golden Dreams Of Borneo, a historical novel about the Chinese goldminers of
Borneo during the time of the first Raja Brooke.
But strangely enough, I can find no mention of them in any scholarly history of Malaysian
literature that Ive come across not even as examples of minor literature. It would seem
that as far as MNE scholars and most Malaysians are concerned, these novels have never
existed. Why is this so?
The only reason I can think of is that these forgotten novels were not published by
mainstream publishers; they were, as far as I can tell, self-published. Can it be that, wittingly
or unwittingly, our scholars have made mainstream (and, especially, international)
publishers the creators of our nations English-language literary canon?
Lets see if we can find an answer to this question when we explore the publishing scene in
the next article.

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3. Publishing in Malaysia: The early years

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In my previous article, I noted that of the 17 Malaysian novels in English (MNEs) published
between 1965 and1993, five are studied by scholars, another five are mentioned in books
about MNEs, and the remaining seven (about 41% ) have been forgotten, or perhaps never
been known to exist.
Significantly, the forgotten seven were self-published (or author-funded): two through
foreign vanity presses, two through a local ad-hoc press, and three through direct
arrangement with printers.
This self-publishing trend is by no means confined to that period. Between 1994 and 2014,
about 44% of the novels published by home-based writers were self-published. Why is this
so? In this article, we seek answers in the local book publishing industry.
It is pointless to speculate on the literary merit (or lack thereof) of the self-published novels
because we cant read them. The only assumption we can reasonably make is that the needs
of self-publishing novelists and those of mainstream publishers somehow did not converge.
There are many reasons for non-convergence, and mismatch of literary standards is only
one. The novelist may have sent in his (or her) manuscript at a time when publishers were
only interested in publishing non-fiction. He may not have the right social connections to
the decision makers in the publishing house. He may have had no higher ambition than to
print out his literary efforts for his family and friends. Or he may have found that local
publishers production standards didnt meet his own higher standards. This last possibility
may sound sacrilegious to contemporary readers (and publishers), but it is a valid reason
when talking about the mainstream-published MNEs of this period.

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I cant discuss the production quality of the self-published novels because Ive been able to
find only one, Alex Lings Golden Dreams Of Borneo (1993). But a survey of existing first
editions of several mainstream MNEs suggests that, in terms of production quality, the
novelists and their readers were not particularly well served by their publishers.

Many of the novels have, at least in my opinion, unattractive covers, inappropriate choices
of papers and fonts, erratic page layouts and multiple misprints. Indeed, the only novel from
that period with a professional and international look and feel is Lings self-published
novel.
More shockingly, an examination of the publishers information pages of the available
novels reveals that some mainstream publishers in Singapore and Malaysia seemed ignorant
of their novelists legal rights. In the case of two novels, both re-publications undertaken as
late as 1992, the publishers ignored the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and
retained the copyright of the works instead of assigning it to the authors.
Why this low level of competence and quality control? The most obvious answer is that the
local book industry was then still in its infancy, and locally based publishers whether

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internationally linked or otherwise lacked the editorial and artistic expertise required for
the publication of MNEs.
During the colonial era, locally published English-language books consisted mainly of
publications required by the government and the Christian missions for their work. Some
literary works short stories, novels and memoirs by colonial officers such as Hugh
Clifford and R.O. Winstedt were locally published, but this happened infrequently.
After Independence, capital investment centred on building hard infrastructure and
developing basic human skills for economic development; the need for school textbooks far
outweighed the need for literary works and most English-language textbooks were
imported.
The implementation of the National Language and the National Literature policies in 1971,
aimed at promoting the nationwide use of Malay for administrative, educational and literary
purposes, further reduced the need for locally published books in English. But because the
policies created a huge demand for locally produced school textbooks, textbooks became
the lucrative mainstay of the local book industry.
Seen in this light, we have to celebrate the mainstream publishers who had the foresight to
invest some of their textbook profits in the MNEs that are now part of our literary canon.
Who were they? Why did they do it? And why are they not part of our local MNE publishing
scene today?
Among the locally based mainstream publishers involved in publishing MNEs were
Heinemann, Times Book International, Pesaka, Aspatra Quest and Arenabuku. Heinemanns
Writers in Asia Series published their first volume, a collection of short stories, in 1966;
Times Books International, together with its imprint Federal Publications, was established in
1968. The local independents, Pesaka, Aspatra Quest and Arenabuku, were established in
the early 1970s, mainly to meet the demand for school textbooks in Malay. But they also
attempted to take the lead in encouraging and nurturing the growth of local literature in
English, publishing collections of short fiction, poetry and plays before moving on to novels.
From the mid-1980s onward, however, these local publishers stopped producing MNEs. I
havent been able to find any information about Aspatra Quest, but Pesaka and Arenabuku
returned to textbook publishing. Meanwhile, Heinemann and Times Books began operating
almost exclusively out of Singapore. These business moves may have been influenced by the
Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984, which further tightened the restrictions
imposed by the PPPA of 1974.
On the other hand, for Heinemann and Times, Singapore would certainly have been a more
congenial place to do business; not only because of its English-language policy, but also
because its government was then aiming to establish a world publishing hub on the island
and offering incentives to multinationals prepared to set up their headquarters there.
As a result, of the four MNEs published between 1989 and 1993, one was published by a
mainstream Singapore publisher; two by small, short-lived local presses; and one was self-

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published. This fractured profile of the local MNE publishing scene was to prevail well into
new millennium.

4. 1965-1993, the lean years of the Malaysian English novel

We have seen how, during the formative years of the Malaysian novel in English (MNE),
writers wrote and published in spite of the unsettling political environment and the
uncertain support of the nascent book publishing industry. What kept them going? Was it
because they knew they could depend on English-literate Malaysians queuing up by the
hundreds to buy their latest book? Need we ask?
During those three decades, several surveys of Malaysian reading and book-buying habits
were carried out. Running through all of them is a common theme: Malaysians had little
interest in reading for cultural and intellectual enrichment. Yes, they all claimed to place a
high value on academic achievements. Yes, each generation of interviewees enjoyed a
higher level of literacy, education and disposable income than the previous generation. But
in 1984, it was found that the average households mean monthly expenditure on books
(excluding textbooks) was RM4. And in 1993, it was reported that the average Malaysian
read only half a page of one book (for pleasure) a year.
The figures improve when only the English-literate are taken into account. The same 1984
survey shows that their mean monthly expenditure on books was RM11; nearly three times
that of the national mean. But they were a tiny minority; of the 6,196 households
interviewed, only 116 households less than 3% belonged in this category.
And they were not buying local books. A 1996 study of the book trade shows that the
English-literate had a marked preference for imported novels of the pulp fiction variety:
romances, thrillers and stories of crime and detection. Even today, if you were to walk into
any book rental shop (the best place to check what Malaysians are really reading), you will
find multiple rows of such novels stacked wall to wall, from floor to ceiling.
Having said that, I must confess I was one of those English-literates who bought and read
imported books. Until 1993, when I finally decided that I had to throw away nationalistic
sentiments and write my novel in English before I died or went mad from grief over the
state of the nation, I had only the vaguest idea of the existence of MNEs. And until around
1999, when I started working on my doctoral thesis, I hadnt the slightest inclination to read
them. I mean, seriously read them.
So, speaking from personal experience, I would like to add one more reason for the low
readership of MNEs among Malaysians. During that period, most English-literate book
buyers were unaware of the existence of local novels, simply because there was relatively
little evidence of readership-building activities, whether by the government, the publishers
or privately organised discussion groups.

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If there were social groups promoting the reading and discussion of MNEs, I never heard of
them. The only book launch and book signing I was invited to was a modest, quiet affair
somewhat exclusive in tone. The impression I got was that everyone there (with the
possible exception of me) saw themselves as part of the Western-educated elite and
considered the writing and reading of English-language literature as the domain of the
literati.

In the local English-language newspapers, one would find the occasional review of an MNE
or come across an interview with a local novelist. Invariably, the novelist interviewed would
be someone with high social standing; either an academic himself, or well-regarded in
academic circles.
Like many governments of young nations, the Malaysian government perceived local
literature as a means of promoting the national identity and image. But because of the
national language and literature policies, the government was officially committed to
promoting only Malay-language literature.
Yet and this may come as a surprise to many it is largely because of the readership-
building activities of government institutions that we can talk today about the early
development, albeit slow and sporadic, of the MNE genre. Two institutions are mentioned
and celebrated here.
One is the public libraries. The National Library routinely keeps copies of newly published
MNEs for their archives. But it should be noted that state, district and municipal lending
libraries frequently purchased copies of MNEs for the benefit of their readers.
The other, more dynamic, and therefore more significant institution would be the public
universities; more specifically, their departments of English language and literature.
Although low-key and infrequent at first, the universities readership-building activities
included reviews and scholarly articles in local, regional, and Commonwealth academic
journals; the presentation of research papers at regional and international literature
conferences; the inclusion of MNEs as texts in language, linguistics, literature, and cultural
studies courses; and, eventually, the introduction of courses for the exclusive study of
MNEs.
Zawiah Yahyas Malay Characters In Malaysian Novels In English (1988), which I have cited
before, is particularly significant because it pioneered an approach to MNEs that took away
the stigma of studying works written in the language of the former colonial masters.
But, as Ive pointed out, the novels taught were confined to those published by mainstream
publishers, and mainstream publishers tended to publish MNEs by authors with some
standing in academic circles. As a result, the MNE world had a coterie-like character:
exclusive, elitist, intellectual, and dry beyond the reach of ordinary readers.
It seems appropriate to end this first part of our journey by celebrating the as yet
unpublished writings of the late Feroz Dawson, whose unexpected death in August 2012

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deprived us of one of our most gifted and brilliant writers. In 1994, then 27, he appended
this note to one of his published short stories: I dont like the fact that most Malaysian
writers are journalists, lecturers and lawyers. For our literature to be vibrant, we need
criminals, maladjusted youngsters and psychotic housewives to write fiction. Then well
raise some eyebrows.
His voice non-conforming, non-mainstream and anti-highbrow became the signature
voice of the MNE writers who made their debut from 1994 onward.

5. Malaysian female novelists: A force to be reckoned with

By 1993, the popular perception of the Malaysian novel in English (MNE) was that it was
serious literature written exclusively by elderly male academics, and read only by ever-
shrinking numbers of English-literature students in local universities.

In 1994, two women launched their first novels, one a murder mystery, the other a
romance. From then on, the popular perception of MNE began to change.
In the years that followed, more new novelists appeared on the scene. The more prolific
ones published two or three novels in as many years, so that for the first time, new MNEs
were launched nearly every year. By the end of 2003, there were 12 new novelists, and they
accounted for 17 of the 20 novels published that decade.
Seven of the new novelists were home-based and five were diaspora writers; 10 (or 83%)
were women. Most were born in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Only one or two were
academics; the rest were professionals in a variety of fields.
The majority of the novels were popular genre fiction murder mysteries, romances,
thrillers, historical fantasies, tales of horror and suspense and they were all written by
non-academics. Only four novels (Beth Yahps The Crocodile Fury, Shirley Lims Joss And
Gold, Lee Kok Liangs London Does Not Belong To Me, K.S. Maniams Between Lives) were
written in the literary style characteristic of pre-1994 MNEs. Unsurprisingly, their authors
were connected to the academic world.
The most notable feature of the MNE scene in 1994-2003 was the dominance of women
novelists: 10 of them published 14 novels in that time. This and the next two articles
celebrate these women, especially the home-based ones, who helped to build a wider
readership for MNEs by writing popular fiction, but whose novels have not received the
attention they deserve.
It is often assumed that because these women novelists wrote pop fiction, their novels
dont address important social and national issues, at least not with the same seriousness
that the academic novelists do. Lurking in that assumption is prejudice, or perhaps

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snobbery. It doesnt take more than one reading of their works to discern that many do deal
seriously with important social and national issues. Theyre just more subtle about it.
Sometimes they weave the issues into the plot. Uma Mahendrans The Twice Born has a
fantasy-like plot in which a man in a coma re-lives a past life in the Indus Valley at the time
of the Aryan invasion. Through his experiences of the racial, political, religious and other
conflicts arising from that encounter between two civilisations, the author addresses similar
conflicts and issues in Malaysia.
Sometimes they hide the issues in the way the story is told. In Ellina Abdul Majids
Khairunnisa: A Good Woman, a young Englishwoman married to a Malay tells of her
experiences of life in a well-to-do Malay family. As a foreigner, she reports what people say
and do without understanding the full implications. But it is through her innocent and
truthful accounts that the author critiques the mindset of post-New Economic Policy-
privileged Malays.
Sometimes they make use of the limitations and everyday trivialities of the average
womans life the family, the community, love, marriage, food, clothes to address matters
of national importance.

In Aneeta Sundararajs The Banana Leaf Men, Rani Manickas Rice Mother, and Shoba
Manos Loves Treacherous Terrain, the narrative focus is on characters and life in South
Asian communities. But the nature of life in these communities is depicted as culturally
diverse. Many of the characters have other-ethnic friends, lovers or spouses; and some
prefer other-ethnic food and clothes. What is interesting is that these preferences for the
other-ethnic are used to dramatise interpersonal, inter-group and inter-generational
conflicts related to ethnic identity and cultural traditions.
The community is thus like a microcosm of the nation, with its never-ending problem of
trying to forge social integration and national unity out of a culturally diverse society.

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Very often, the women novelists address social problems with a far better grasp of reality
and with more profound insights than male novelists do. This is certainly true of novels
dealing with the oppression and abuse of women and girls.
In the MNEs written by men between 1965 and 1993, abused women are usually portrayed
as victims of poverty, culturally-endorsed male chauvinism and their own unquestioning
acceptance of their worthlessness. Physical and sexual forms of parental, spousal or
fraternal abuse are seldom mentioned or, if mentioned, glossed over. On the rare occasion
that a woman succeeds in escaping her situation, she disappears from the novel as soon as
she walks away; we are not told whether and how she will survive.
In contrast, in the womens novels eg Ellina Abdul Majids Perhaps In Paradise, Yang-May
Oois The Flame Tree, Marie Gerrina Louis The Eleventh Finger, Manickas Rice Mother, and
my own novel Echoes Of Silence the oppressed females are nearly all from higher social
and economic strata. The violence done to them is not just psychological, it is physical; and
acts of cruelty such as parental brutality, wife-battering, and fraternal rape are described
without sentimentality.
Significantly, the abused women are not portrayed as helpless victims, but as victors: strong-
willed women who take steps to break free and start a new life. And the story of their self-
empowerment and survival is central to the novels plot.
In this overview of MNEs by women, I have highlighted the novelists skill in using the
conventions of popular fiction to deal with serious social and national issues. In the next
article, I shall discuss how those who chose to self-publish set new paradigms for the
production, promotion, and marketing of local MNEs.

6. Malaysian novels in English: A fragmented publishing scene

In my earlier survey of the local publishing scene in 1965-1993, I noted that it was only
between 1976 and 1984 that Malaysian novels in English (MNEs) were published by locally
based mainstream publishers. The rest of the time, novelists had to resort to foreign small
presses or self-publishing. One of the consequences is that the self-published books are now
mostly forgotten and unread.
The situation in 1994-2003 was very similar. However, the new generation of self-published
authors (all women) have been more successful in ensuring their novels do not vanish into
oblivion. Today, nearly 20 years after their first publication, some of their novels are still
being bought and read.
In my previous article, I discussed how these women opened up new possibilities for the
development of MNEs by crafting discourses of national and social importance into popular
fiction forms. In this article, I celebrate the fact that, through their efforts to produce and
sell their self-published works, they set new paradigms for the local promotion, marketing
and distribution of MNEs.

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An examination of who published which MNEs launched in 1994-2003 reveals the
fragmented nature of the local publishing scene. Of the 13 novels by home-based novelists,
only three were published by locally based mainstream publishers: Alex Lings Twilight Of
The White Rajahs (1997) by the Sarawak Literary Society in Kuching; and K.S. Maniams
Between Lives and Lee Kok Liangs London Does Not Belong To Me, both launched in 2003
by the newly established Maya Press.

Malaysian-made: The three novels that were published by local mainstream publishers.

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The three novels by Marie Gerrina Louis, who lives in Johor Baru and works in Singapore
Road To Chandibole (1994), Junos (1995) and The Eleventh Finger (2000) were published
by mainstream presses in Singapore.
Hamid Yusofs The Thirdway Factor (1996) was published by a vanity press in Britain, and
Shoba Manos Loves Treacherous Terrain (2003) was published in India.

The remaining five novels Ellina A. Majids Perhaps In Paradise (1997) and Khairunnisa: A
Good Woman (1998), Uma Mahendrans The Twice Born (1998), Aneeta Sundararajs The
Banana Leaf Men (2003) and my own book, Echoes Of Silence (1994) were self-published.
The five diasporic novelists who published during the same period had an easier time; they
were all published by established publishers. Yang-May Oois The Flame Tree (1998) and
Mindgame (2000), and Rani Manickas The Rice Mother (2002) were published by Hodder &
Stoughton.
Shirley Lims Joss And Gold (2001) was published simultaneously by the Feminist Press in
New York and Times Book International in Singapore.
Interestingly, two novelists were published by local presses which, until then, were not
known to publish fiction. Beth Yahps The Crocodile Fury was published in 1996 by Strategic
Information Research Development, an imprint of Gerakbudaya. Tunku Halims Dark Demon
Rising (1997) and Vermillion Eye (2000) were published by Pelanduk Publications,
established in 1984 and mainly associated with non-fiction.
The pattern that emerges from this brief survey is clear. A home-based novelist who didnt
live in the right place or have the right connections to a publishing house had to self-publish
or perish as a novelist.

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Malaysian novelists, Tunku Halim and Beth Yahp

The four women novelists who self-published may or may not have been the psychotic
housewives that Feroz Dawson had hoped would invigorate the local fiction scene, but
they were certainly women with successful careers in the commercial world. In informal
chats with them, I learned that their approach to writing and publishing was marked by their
working-life professionalism. For one thing, they had done their market research.
As writers, they were aware of the reading publics preference for imported popular fiction.
As publishers, they knew of the lack of adequately trained personnel and quality control
systems in the book publishing, distribution and retailing industries.
As businesswomen, they set up their own publishing companies, and took advantage of
their knowledge of information technology to produce, publish, market and promote their
books, creating websites, blogs and social networks as and when the applications became
available.
They made use of their experience in public relations, advertising and marketing to plan
book launches. They worked with event planners, bookshops, universities, schools, book
discussion groups and local as well as expatriate culture-related groups to organise readings
and meet-the-author sessions at which they discussed their work, and sold their books.
Many of their practices, new in the 1990s, are now commonplace in the local publishing
industry. But perhaps their most significant contribution to the industry is that their
activities, although essentially commercial, had a community-oriented flavour. Over time,
novel writing began to lose the elitism of the past and came to be seen as achievable by
anyone with the will to develop his or her writing skills.
It can be said without overstating the case that because of their efforts, the basic
infrastructure required to take the MNE in a new direction was already in place locally when
large international publishers began publishing, promoting and marketing the Malaysian
novels of the diaspora.
It is often assumed that the diaspora writers, especially those who have won literary
awards, are responsible for putting the MNE on the world map. The way I look at it, it seems
like an oversimplification of the matter. The real cause was a series of political and
economic events in the second half of the 1990s, which suddenly made Malaysia interesting
to an increasingly globalised world. In my next article, I shall explore how the phenomenon
of globalisation helped build an international readership for the MNE.

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7. Malaysian novels in English: New initiatives and paradigms

When Rani Manicka's The Rice Mother won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize in 2003,
Malaysians proved they could rise above mediocrity.

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In 1994-2003, women writers entered the Malaysian novel in English (MNE) scene,
dominated it and helped raise the publication rate to an unprecedented average of two
novels per year. But sheer output alone does not ensure a genres viability; for MNEs to
grow and develop, writers and publishers need people to read and buy their books.
Had the average English-literate Malaysian become more receptive to MNEs during this
period? What was it like for a woman writer launching her first, self-published novel in
Malaysia in 1994? What kind of reception could she expect?
As the first on the scene, I was told, in no uncertain terms, what to expect by a reviewer of
my novel.
Can a Malaysian writer rise above the artistic mediocrity of his peninsular outpost of
progress, which flaunts regularly some of the most mindless TV and cinema in the
supposedly civilised world?! he asks.
And answers: I know my duty, I know the tradition He wont. As a critic rising above the
prevailing mediocrity myself, I can see that he wont. (You can read the full review at
http://chuahguateng.blogspot.my/2009/03/ted-doralls-review-of-echoes-of-silence.html.)
Fortunately, I too knew the tradition. Sure, I had written a Malaysian novel addressing
contemporary Malaysian issues, but I had no intention of casting it into the local slough of
indifference. I was fully intent on sending my little book forth into the wider world.
With that in mind, I launched my novel at the Commonwealth Club instead of a bookshop.
Apart from a few close friends and the local media, my invited guests were all foreigners,
mainly cultural attaches of the diplomatic corps.
Half a dozen good friends, well-known figures in local professional and amateur theatre,
were there to entertain my guests by reading their favourite passages from the novel. And
thanks to the old school tie, the launch was officiated by the then Minister of International
Trade and Industry, whose presence ensured that I even got some 15 seconds of fame on
local TV.
The launch made a small splash in the local pond, but the ripples were far-reaching. In the
months that followed, I got inquiries and orders from publishers, scholars, and general
readers in Britain, United States, Europe, Australia, the Philippines and Singapore.
Between 1998 and 2002, I was invited to speak and read at international writers gathering
in Mauritius, Finland and Slovenia the last two countries a sobering reminder to Anglo-
centric Malaysians that English-speaking countries alone dont constitute the literary
world.
Did I, a self-published first-time novelist in the outer wilderness of the literary world,
manage all that with my one little book? Of course not. I just happened to be present at a
time when local socio-political, economic and cultural events not to mention scandals
were making Malaysia a country of interest for the rapidly globalising world. And some of
these events helped to build an international readership for the MNE.

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The most significant event was the announcement in early 1991 of Vision 2020. Its implied
promise of a more liberal attitude toward the use of English did not create a desire in
Malaysians to read MNEs; it seems rather to have quickened their urge to write, an urge
encouraged by The New
Straits Times, which ran annual poetry and short-story writing competitions for several
years. But it did lead to other events that facilitated the building of an international
readership for the MNE?
As in earlier years, the universities took the lead. In November 1994, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia held an international conference, A View Of Our Own: Ethnocentric Perspectives
In Literature. Significantly, it was jointly organised by the universitys Language Centre,
known for championing the study of local literature in English, and the National Writers
Association of Malaysia, the bastion of Malay-language literature.
It was a collaboration signalling that the national (and nationalist) psyche was ready to
accommodate the writing, reading and teaching of Malaysian literature in English without
guilt or rancour. In November 1996, Universiti Malaya organised its own conference, the
International Asian Women Writers Conference. Such conferences helped bring
contemporary MNEs to the attention of local and international academic communities,
where there was a growing interest in the literatures of emerging nations among those
specialising in post-colonial, gender and socio-cultural studies.
One consequence of Vision 2020 was an upsurge of foreign investments in the industrial and
manufacturing sectors, as well as a stepping up of infrastructure and prestige-building
projects in preparation for the 1998 Commonwealth Games. These activities brought a large
influx of expatriate professionals and their wives, for many of whom reading MNEs was an
easy and entertaining way to learn about the country.

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Novelist Rani Manicka: "I like that because I can't imagine a world where what we see is
what we get ... I would hate it if there weren't ghosts and spirits!" Photo: The Star/Norafifi
Ehsan
Local novelists were often invited to read from and discuss their works at their cultural or
book-group meetings and at-home parties. Many helped spread awareness of MNEs
throughout the world by buying multiple copies of the latest novels to send or take home as
gifts.
But perhaps Vision 2020s most important although inadvertent contribution to the
readership building efforts of local MNE writers was the introduction of the Internet Age
in 1995, and its relatively rapid development through the establishment of the Multimedia
Super Corridor in 1996.
By enabling writers and publishers to connect instantly with large numbers of potential
readers and book buyers all over the world, the Internet restructured traditional writer-
publisher-reader dynamics and became a powerful readership building and marketing tool
for self-published writers.

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It should be noted that these efforts by home-based MNE writers to establish their presence
in the literary world outside Malaysia were undertaken before major international
publishers began publishing novels of the diaspora. But, like a herald of the glory diaspora
writers were to bring with their award-winning books, this decade were looking at ends
with Rani Manicka, a diaspora writer, winning the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for her
novel, The Rice Mother. With that, she proved my reviewer wrong: a Malaysian can indeed
rise above the nations prevailing artistic mediocrity.

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22
8. Malaysian Novels in English: Looking at lesser-known Writers

In the period from 1994-2003, self-published women novelists set the development of the
Malaysian novel in English (MNE) on a new trajectory by proving that novelists dont have to
be academics; that their novels can address serious issues in an entertaining way; and that
they can use the Internet to reach readers throughout the world.
In the decade from 2004-2014, no less than 66 new MNEs were published, 12 in 2014 alone.
The new output average of six books a year is a remarkable improvement on the 1994-2003
average of two books, and the 1965-1993 average of a book in two years.
Even more remarkable, 39 (or 87%) of the 45 published writers were first-time novelists,
and they accounted for 61 (or 92%) of the novels. On top of all this, an impressive number
of diaspora writers won international literary awards.
What I personally find most remarkable is that local-based writers dominated in terms of
number of writers and productivity. Heres the breakdown: 26 locally-based writers (23
new) with 38 novels; 13 diaspora writers (10 new) with 19 novels; and six expatriate writers
(all new on the MNE scene) with nine novels.
In this article I celebrate this achievement by highlighting the novels that are lesser known,
little read, and uncelebrated pointing out some trends as I go along.

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In the first few years of the decade, the majority of the novels published were what I shall
call heritage novels. I hesitate to call them historical novels even though they are set in
the past recent or distant, mythical or fact-based because, strictly speaking, they arent.
The narrative tone, voice and perspective are invariably modern, and the novels often end
in the present with present-day characters reaching an understanding of who they are and
where they belong.
This suggests that the novelists view history mainly as a tool to assert or affirm cultural
heritage and identity. This view gives their novels an ethnocentric bias; and a comparison of
the heritage novels published during this period shows that this bias influences the way the
novelists write about the past.
A common feature of heritage MNEs by Malay writers is the preference for specific
historical events that allow the dramatisation of their Malay characters first encounter
with, and subsequent adjustments to, European culture: the Portuguese invasion in Kamsiah

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Bostocks Malacca: A Romance (2011); the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty in Iskandar Al-Bakris
The Beruas Prophecy (2011); the assassination of Birch, first British Resident of Perak, in
Shahriza Husseins Legacy (2008); teacher-training in 1950s Britain in Isa Shaaris Kirkby: The
Life And The Loves (2009); and the imminent end of colonial rule in Adibah Amins This End
Of The Rainbow (2006).
In heritage MNEs by non-Malay, mostly Chinese, writers, the common element is the
diaspora story: how their characters suffered in the ancestral homeland, the difficult
journey to British Malaya and how they and their descendants had to adjust to the local way
of life in the new country.
This basic story is explicit or implicit in heritage novels by both home-based and diaspora
writers: Khoo Kheng-Hors Taikor (2004), Nanyang (2007) and Sifu (2009); Kuan Guat Choos
Mouse Clutching Winter Melon (2008) and Or Rau (2009); Chiew-Siah Teis Little Hut Of
Leaping Fishes (2008) and The Mouse-Deer Kingdom (2013); and Yap Chan Lings Sweet
Offerings (2009) and Bitter-sweet Harvest (2012).
Interestingly, variations of this basic story are found in the novels of some diaspora writers
e.g. Shirley Lims Sister Swing (2006), Preeta Samarasans Evening Is The Day (2008) and
Matthew Thomas Anakara House (2014). In these novels, the main character is (or used to
be) a Malaysian who, because of problematic circumstances in the family home in Malaysia,
ultimately finds it necessary to leave and settle in another country.
The novels publication dates indicate that heritage novels of this nature appeared less
frequently after 2010. This may not mean that the heritage novel as a sub-genre has lost its
cultural currency; it could simply mean that writers and readers today prefer it in a new
form.
Golda Mowes Iban Dream (2013), Yangsze Choos The Ghost Bride (2013) and Shih-li Kows
Sum Of Our Follies (2014) may be considered heritage novels. But their tool for asserting or
affirming cultural heritage and identity isnt documented history; it is folklore, legends,
myths and stories heard in childhood.
Another trend after 2010 is the sharp increase in genre or pulp fiction. The rise in crime-
and-detection novels is more apparent because theyre easily identifiable and, furthermore,
appeared in a clump. Between 2009 and 2013, eight were published: three Inspector Singh
novels by Shamini Flint, three Inspector Mislan novels by Rozlan Mohd Noor and two Kain
Songket mysteries by Barbara Ismail.
Thrillers, or stories of adventure and suspense, were in fact more numerous. MNE thrillers
come in a variety of flavours, usually spiced with political criticism and seasoned with
humour. Some are brewed with Malay magic: Lee Su Anns The Curse (2007), Geoffrey S.
Walkers The Bomohs Apprentice (2010) and Blood Reunion (2011), Tunku Halims Last
Breath (2014) and Hadi M. Nors Family Values (2014).
Some are spiked with political intrigue: Brian Gomez Devils Place (2008, republished 2013),
Dipika Mukherjees Thunder Demons (2011) and Mohd Rozlan Noors The Gods (2014).
Some serve up the underbelly of Malaysian society: Khoo Kheng-Hors Mamasan (2007),

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Marco Ferrareses Nazi Goreng (2013), Ewe Paik Leongs A China Doll In KL (2014) and
Mamu Viess Dog Pound (2014).
And some are set in imaginary worlds: the political satires of Joshua Parapurams futuristic
Blue Moon (2004) and ES Shankars Tiger Isle: A Government Of Thieves (2012) and
Christine Chus fantasy spy thriller Codename: Jumping Spider (2014).

Finally, I must mention AB Hashims novels Timid (2012), Five Thieving Bastards (2013) and
The Man In The Fire (2013), and Farah K.s Evasion (2014). These novels intrigue me because
their first-person narrators are not Malaysian, but Westerners living in the west. I cant help
wondering why, and whether its the start of a new trend.

9. Malaysian novels in English: Local publishing blooms

I have written about the remarkable increase in the number of Malaysian novels in English
(MNEs) published between 2004 and 2014. The increase was partly due to the contributions
of diaspora and expatriate writers, but it was local novelists who dominated the scene,
forming nearly 60% of writers, and accounting for 60% of novels.
Some readers have suggested to me that this high production level owes much to the
inspiring examples of diaspora writers like Rani Manicka, Tash Aw and Tan Twan Eng, who
have won major literary prizes. This may be true for individual writers, but the pattern of
growth of the three MNE categories local, diaspora and expatriate writings tells a
different story.
For all the excitement caused by the prize-winning novelists, the publication rate of diaspora
novels over the years was not spectacular. It hovered around one or two a year, reached
four in its peak year, 2009, dropped to three in 2010, and then to zero in 2011.
When the publication rate returned to two per year in 2012-2014, three of the six novels
were published by local and Singaporean publishers. Is this a sign that the international
publishing worlds interest in MNEs has waned? Time will tell.
What cannot be ignored right now is that, after their debut Malaysian novels, several
diaspora novelists have set their subsequent novels in other, usually Asian, countries. It is
also notable that expatriate MNEs, which appeared only from 2010 to 2013 and at a rate of
two to three a year, were all published either in Malaysia or in Singapore, and not in the
novelists countries of residence.
In contrast, local MNEs showed a pattern of steady and uninterrupted growth: one a year
from 2004 to 2006; three a year from 2007 to 2010; four a year in 2011 and 2012; five in
2013; and an astonishing 10 in 2014. One reason for this steady growth is undoubtedly the
support writers were getting from a growing number of local and regional publishers.

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Who were these publishers and what were they publishing?
From 2004 to 2009, the main publishers were well-established companies, but not known
for publishing fiction. Their ventures into the MNE field were limited to single works (eg
Editions Didier-Millet) or multiple works by a single author (eg Pelanduk) all of them
heritage novels by older authors.
From 2010 onward, other publishers entered the MNE publishing scene. Among the first
were Silverfish and MPH. Although their core business is in the retailing and/or distribution
of books, they had been publishing short fiction in English by local and regional writers for
some years.
Silverfish entered with the first of Rozlan Mohd Noors Inspector Mislan mysteries and went
on to publish five more MNEs, the latest two in 2014. MPH entered with Geoffrey Walkers
The Bomohs Apprentice, and then published three more expatriate MNEs, the last in 2012.
From 2012, we have a group of new, independent publishers, who are particularly
interesting because they are aiming specifically at the new, younger generation of readers,
and therefore are more likely to set the trends for the future development of the MNE.
Fixi Novo is undoubtedly the more active, followed by Lejen Press. Neither enterprise is new
to the local publishing scene; in recent years, they have successfully established themselves
as publishers of popular pulp Malay-language fiction (including novels).
In 2012, Lejen Press launched the first of A.B. Hashims series of novels narrated by a
Westerner called Angus Baird. In 2013, Fixi Novo announced its entry with a hat-trick: one
expatriate MNE (Kris Williamsons Son Complex) and two local ones (Khaliza Khalids
Wedding Speech and Brian Gomez originally self-published Devils Place).
In 2013 and 2014, three more MNE publishers aiming at the youth market Poket Press,
Jemariseni and Terfaktab Media launched their first MNEs.
What this overview shows is that, however pleased and proud Malaysians may feel about
the diaspora MNEs that have won international awards, local publishers are not anxious to
produce novels with similar content and style. This is stated unequivocally in Fixi Novos
tongue-in-cheek manifesto, We publish stories about the urban reality of Malaysia. If you
want to share your grandmothers World War 2 stories, send em elsewhere and you might
even win the Booker Prize.
In other words, there is a debate going on in the MNE publishing scene about what it means
to be Malaysian today. The debate may never reach a resolution, but it will certainly have
an effect on the future development of the MNE genre, influencing not only what and how
novelists must write to be published, but also the reading tastes of those to whom the
novels are promoted.
Meanwhile, writers whose novels dont fit comfortably into any of the prevailing views will
have to resort to self-publishing. As in earlier years, the proportion of self-published MNEs

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remained high during this period more than 20%. At the same time, self-publishing has
lost its stigma of yesteryear. It has become, like Wattpad and crowd-sourcing, just another
way for writers to get their novels to their readers.
It seems to me that the diversity of MNE publishing modes in Malaysia reflects a vibrancy
that can only bode well for the development of this genre.
The number of novelists prepared to invest in their own and their compatriots works is
suggestive of a kind of cottage industry, unfailingly producing evidence of a creative pulse
beating somewhere, and independent of the comings and goings of well-capitalised,
mainstream publishers in foreign lands.

10. Malaysian novels in English: Building a local readership

In my previous article, I made the observation that until around 2010, most of the new
home-based novels published were heritage novels set in colonial times.
After that year, such novels continued to be written by diaspora writers, but on the local
scene, they began to disappear, to be replaced mainly by genre or pulp fiction (eg, crime
thrillers).

If you remember, I then cited Fixi Novos Manifesto which states quite starkly that they
specialise in pulp fiction, and have no interest in publishing your grandmothers World War
2 stories.
That quoted statement drew some spirited responses from a number of my readers. One
suggested that the writer of the Manifesto was being snarky about the prize-winning
diaspora novels of Rani Manicka, Tash Aw, and Tan Twan Eng (all of which deal partly or
wholly with the Japanese Occupation of World War II), and wanted to know if local
publishers and Malaysians in general were resentful of diaspora writers.
Another wanted to understand the reasons for the preference for genre fiction, and
wondered if local Malaysian novels in English (MNEs) can still be considered literature.
I cant answer for Fixi Novo, of course, and I dont intend to, but I thought I would try to
address some of the issues raised in these questions in a general way while examining and
celebrating local efforts to build a readership for the MNE, which is the real purpose of
this article.
The idea that local publishers and Malaysians in general are resentful of diaspora writers is
easily demolished. First, most Malaysians Ive spoken to dont make a distinction between
local and diaspora MNEs. I, for one, divide them into categories in this series only because
my intention is to provide statistical data for analysis.

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Secondly, as I pointed out in the previous article, local publishers (including Fixi Novo) have
published a number of MNEs by diaspora and expatriate writers in recent years. And they
have promoted these novels, alongside novels by local authors, at major international book
trade events such as the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Thirdly, no discrimination is made in readership-building activities by government
institutions. Through the years, local universities have continued to create national and
international awareness of both local and diaspora MNEs through scholarly journals and
international conferences. And the National Library of Malaysia has unfailingly nominated
both diaspora and local MNEs for the Dublin/IMPAC Literary Award ever since 2005, when
the library first took part.
The reasons for the preference for genre fiction are more difficult to pin down. The reason
given by Fixi Novo is: because crime, horror, sci-fi and so on turn us on. But since other
publishers who do not acknowledge a similar reading taste were also publishing genre
fiction during this period, there must be other reasons.
One possibility is that it makes marketing sense, since it has been established by several
studies of the local book industry that English-literate Malaysians have a preference for
imported pulp fiction. However, whether readers who like imported pulp will readily switch
their allegiance to local pulp is hard to say. Novels arent like bags of salt; they dont all taste
the same.
The younger generation of writers conduct readership-building activities all the time like
fests and this reading activity organised by Bookworms Penang. Photo: The Star/Chan Boon
Kai
The current generation of writers conduct readership-building activities all the time like
fests and reading discussions. Photo: The Star/Chan Boon Kai
The other possibility is found in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. One of the
aims of the Blueprint is to close the urban-rural gap in English Language proficiency, and one
of the recommended methods is the development of a reading-for-pleasure culture among
the young.

This might explain why, from about 2013 onwards, we find publishers such as Lejen,
Jemariseni, Poket Press, and Terfaktab Media entering the MNE scene with romantic
fantasies and other forms of light reading aimed primarily at the young adult reader.
However, government policies and marketing aims are one thing; the realities of the
marketplace are another. The reality is that the flood of imported books supplied by book
importers, distributors and retailers to cater to the tastes of the largest and most lucrative
market segment the urban, English-educated middle-class leaves little room for local
MNEs to make their presence felt in mainstream outlets. As a result, MNE publishers and
writers have had to resort to alternative channels to expand their market.

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Unlike older generations of MNE writers, who tended to sit in splendid isolation in their
ivory towers, the younger generation of writers, publishers and writer-publishers are more
inclined toward readership-building activities that are collaborative and community-
oriented.
They frequently work with one another, and with other creative arts communities to
organise and curate art and literary events to promote their books.
Among the more established and regular events are the Art for Grabs/KLAB (Kuala Lumpur
Alternative Bookfest) and the Georgetown Literary Festival in Penang. Nowadays, art and
literary festivals have become so fashionable that hardly a month goes by without one going
on in one of the cities or larger urban centres, not only in Peninsular Malaysia but also in
Sabah and Sarawak.
Increasingly, such endeavours are being supported by mainstream English-language
newspapers, periodicals, radio stations and university literature departments perhaps
because many of those who work in these establishments are themselves engaged in one
form or another of creative writing.
A particularly encouraging sign and cause for celebration is that several book discussion
groups dedicated to or emphasising MNEs have recently been formed by literary-minded
members of the public in major town centres and on the Internet.
Finally, can a local MNE written in the genre fiction mode still be considered literature? It
all depends on the novel itself. After all, what makes a novel literary isnt its genre; its what
the novelist does with his or her chosen genre.
And, alas, the only way to answer that question is to read the novel.

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