Abstract
Introduction
The anticipated growth in Malaysian literature in English, which was triggered by the increase in the quality of some noteworthy fictional works in the first decade of the century, did not seem to be strongly reinforced during the year. Only fiction was well served, with eight volumes produced: five novels and three volumes of short fiction.
The other genres did not see a significant growth, with no print publications in poetry or drama. In this regard, it was clearly the case that the flowering of Malaysian literature in the first decade of the new century was largely confined to fiction and this trend remains. To highlight the difficulty faced by the other literary genres, the Boh Cameronian Arts Awards, which gave recognition to noteworthy Malaysians involved in drama, was terminated. Although some Malaysian plays were performed, there was more apparent activity in Singapore than in Malaysia, even when it concerned Malaysian drama. Plays by the Malaysian playwrights Iryanda Mulia Ramli and Leow Puay Tin and a theatrical tribute to Chopin by Phan Ming Yen (co-written with Singaporean Jeremiah Choy) were performed in the island state.
During the year, Malaysia’s expatriate authors received more global attention than the locally based authors, although the attention is somewhat reduced when compared to previous years. The indefatigable Singapore-based Shamini Flint produced another novel in the Inspector Singh Investigates series, Singapore School of Villainy. The humorous and overweight main character now has dedicated followers across the globe. Rani Manicka’s new novel, The Japanese Lover, however, was not as well received. Readers of Manicka’s novel comment on its shallow characters whose actions do not appear to be adequately motivated. Among them is the main character Parvathi, whose love affair with a Japanese general during the Second World War in Malaya is insufficiently contextualised.
The Malaysian interest in the war, explored through Japanese characters, is also illustrated in another novel, Joan Foo Mahony’s Leaving the Heart Behind. But unlike Manicka’s work, the novel was published locally by the author herself. Self-publication, by which the authors set up their own companies to publish their works, is a noteworthy feature of recent Malaysian publications. When Chuah Guat Eng brought out her first novel, Echoes of Silence, in 1994, she set up her own firm, Holograms, to publish it. Holograms was also the publisher of her long-awaited sequel, Days of Change, which came out during the year. Chuah’s novel highlighted the fact that there are some good Malaysian literary works that have been self-published. Another self-published work was Louis Anthony Vincent’s paean to the Malaysian Railway, Walk along the Tracks.
Singapore’s expatriate authors, like their Malaysian counterparts, also seem to be less prominent than in previous years. There was a new novel, Pulse, by the Singaporean-Canadian author Lydia Kwa, which received some attention. Mention must also be made of the re-publication of The Scent of the Gods by the Singaporean-American novelist Fiona Cheong, with an introduction by Leslie Bow. Apart from them, the other expatriate authors seem to have receded into the background. The playwright Chay Yew, for example, seemed to have faded away into the woodwork of American theatre and now appears to be increasingly less relevant to the Singapore cultural scene. There is also a volume of poetry written by Fiona Sze-Lorain, Water the Moon, but it is less easy to describe her as an expatriate author as it is not clear if her residence abroad is as permanent as the originally Singaporean authors mentioned above.
Sze-Lorain’s book was not the only volume of poetry published during the year. There were seven others which, together, make a stark contrast with the total lack of individual poetry collections in Malaysia. Among them are volumes published by veteran writers Cyril Wong, Yong Shu Hoong and Eleanor Wong. Cyril Wong published a volume on dreamscape and identity; Yong’s and Eleanor Wong’s new volumes will further establish their standing as English-language poets in Singapore. There were also welcome debut volumes by Grace Chua and Teng Qian Xi and a volume of poems by Francis Lim who describes his experience as a zookeeper trough the medium of poetry.
The most curious poetry publication during the year was undoubtedly Chandran Nair’s collected poems, Reaching for Stones. Nair was a poet who could be classified together with the other Singaporean poets of an earlier generation, such as Edwin Thumboo, Arthur Yap and Lee Tzu Pheng. Thus the volume of his collected poetry spans forty-seven years. What has also been noteworthy is Nair’s virtual disappearance from the local poetry scene for more than thirty years, due to his professional posting abroad. In 1973 and 1975, he published two volumes of poetry, but we had to wait thirty-five years before his next volume appeared. What is strange about the publication was the virtual silence that it was greeted with; there were hardly any reviews or notices during the year of publication. This might be due to the difficulty of some of Nair’s poems which refer to private experiences that are not fully explained or contextualized. But there is no question about the importance of this volume, as one could read what Nair has achieved as a poet within the covers of a single book. There is no question either about Nair’s significance as an English-language poet in Singapore and this is made clear in the volume’s introduction by Edwin Thumboo.
The publication of dramatic works by Singaporean authors was more prolific than in previous years. The publication of several volumes by two of Singapore’s major playwrights, Alfian Sa’at and Haresh Sharma, is particularly welcome. Alfian published two volumes of collected plays, the second of which comprises his controversial Asian Boys trilogy. Sharma published three volumes: a collection of short plays, a trilogy of his more famous plays and a volume devoted to a single play: his critical look at the teaching profession, Those Who Can’t, Teach, which was also staged, with some revisions to make it more contemporary, during the year. In addition, Jean Tay’s moving Everything but the Brain and three of Geraldine Song’s plays, which appear in the volume To Thee Do We Cry, Poor Banished Children, were published.
In spite of the reduction of funding for theatre by Singapore’s National Arts Council, the year did not see a decrease in the staging of local plays. There were performances of three classic plays by Stella Kon and Kuo Pao Kun in Singapore and abroad: Kon’s Emily of Emerald Hill and Kuo’s Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral were staged in Singapore, while a translated version of Kon’s Emily and Kuo’s Spirits Play were staged in India. Other foreign productions of Singapore plays were Abdul Karim and Jeremiah Choy’s Salasuah in Hong Kong, and Sharma’s Sofoman in Russia. A new interactive play on terrorism, by Ailin Mosbit and Kok Heng Leun, was staged during the year as were both new and older plays by Chong Tze Chien and Haresh Sharma. Sharma’s critical look at Singapore society and politics was evident in such plays as Model Citizens and _______ Can Change (the blank space is to be filled by the people who were supposed to “change” after certain measures taken by the government). Mention should also be made here of the opera Fences, with libretto written by Robert Yeo.
There were twelve books of fiction published, although three of them should be considered republications. In addition to Fiona Cheong’s Scent of the Gods, which was mentioned earlier, Goh Poh Seng’s If We Dream Too Long and a collection of Claire Tham’s stories should also be noted. These are significant republications, and not merely reprintings; new introductions were written not only for Cheong’s novel, but for Goh’s novel as well and Tham’s stories were usefully compiled within the covers of a single volume. Some of the fiction published by Singaporean authors could be described as genre fiction, with science fiction written by Anders Brink and Lim Kah Beng, horror by Samantha De Silva and chic-lit by Lum Kit-Wye, whose novel In 5 Easy Steps, was the winner of the inaugural Asia Chic Writing Competition the previous year.
O Thiam Chin published his work again in Malaysia this year, which perhaps underlines the pull of fictional works in the country. His collection of flash fiction found company with a similar collection by the Malaysian Amir Muhammad and with other short story collections by Malaysians, such as Chua Kok Yee’s Without Anchovies and Shaari Isa’s Did It Really Happen?
The year saw the passing of Goh Poh Seng who, in spite of his migration to Canada in 1986, is still considered a Singapore author. It is worth mentioning that listings of readings of his works in Canada still describe him as “Singaporean”. The posthumous republication during the year of If We Dream Too Long, which is considered a significant early work of Singapore fiction in English, was a fitting commemoration of his importance in the country’s literary history. In the words of fellow author Robert Yeo, “It is difficult to summarise him, given that he had done so much, lived so much”.