Through the generosity of Professor Benedict Anderson and Ajarn Charnvit Kasetsiri, an informative book about ASEAN writing has entered the collection of the Thammasat University Libraries. Writing a Nation: Essays on Malaysian Literature is edited by Professor Mohammad A. Quayum and Associate Professor Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf. It is shelved in the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus. The book is a significant addition to the other volumes in the TU Libraries about Malaysian literature. 

It contains essays on literature in the Malay, Chinese, and English languages in Malaysia. Mahua literature is one subject, or Malayan Chinese literature by Chinese residents in Malaysia. The term Mahua is also sometimes used to refer to literature written by Chinese authors in Malaysia in Malay, English, or other languages apart from Chinese. These works are of particular interest to historians and sociologists because, although produced by writers from China, they are more about the Chinese society of Malaysia, instead of mainland China. Other chapters in the book address such themes as gender, ethnicity, religion, language and identity, nationalism and transnationalism. Influenced by Professor Anderson, a number of the writers discuss Malaysian nationalism and national identity.

By the same editors, the TU Libraries also own Imagined Communities Revisited: Critical Essays on Asia-Pacific Literatures and Cultures. This book’s title was inspired by Professor Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, which introduced the influential idea of imagined communities to political science and sociological studies. It also has a preface by Professor Anderson. Professor Quayum is a writer, editor, and translator. He was born in Bangladesh and has taught at universities in Australia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Singapore. He is currently Professor of English at International Islamic University Malaysia and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Education, Humanities and Law at Flinders University, Australia. Professor Quayum is the founding editor of Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature. 

Among his areas of study are Malaysian-Singaporean literature and the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The TU Libraries own several books by and about Rabindranath Tagore. Professor Quayum earned degrees in English literature at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and Lakehead University, Canada, before receiving a Ph.D. at Flinders University, Australia. His doctoral thesis was on Saul Bellow in the Emerson-Whitman Tradition: A Study of His Later Novels in the Light of American Transcendentalism. The thesis was later published in revised form as Saul Bellow and American Transcendentalism (2004). 

Saul Bellow was a Canadian-American novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The TU Libraries own many books by and about Saul Bellow. Among other noteworthy books by Professor Quayum is The Essential Rokeya: Selected Works of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932). As the website of the National Woman’s Party notes,

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a Muslim feminist and social reformer who dedicated her life to education and the empowerment of women. Born in 1880 in Bangladesh during British colonial rule, Rokeya was brought up in a Muslim family that followed the purdah, a strict set of social rules which required women be secluded from society. However, the support from her brothers and husband would give her the strength to persevere through harsh criticism, and inspire her to become the author of several books and eventually open a school for girls… In 1916, she founded the Muslim Women’s Association, an organization that argued for women’s education and employment.  In 1926, Rokeya presided over the Bengal Women’s Education Conference held in Calcutta, the first noted attempt to bring women together in support of women’s education rights. She was active in debates and conferences concerning the advancement of women until her death on December 9, 1932, shortly after presiding over a session during the Indian Women’s Conference. Every year, December 9th is observed as “Rokeya Day” in Bangladesh.  Today, she is remembered for her ability to escape the restriction of the purdah and for using her skills as a writer to voice insightful and witty opinions. She holds high recognition as being one of the first Muslim feminists that attempted to bring major social changes to her country.  Through her actions she earned the honorific title of begum which is only given to women who earn the right to a higher status.

Professor Quayum has also published translations of works by Rabindranath Tagore as well as a useful anthology, A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories (2010). It comprises 25 short stories by authors from Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Guyana, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Australia. Themes of the stories include social conflict, cultural clashes, struggles between tradition and modernization, and related topics.

Still other valuable contributions to the international understanding of Asian literature by Professor Quayum are his coedited book, Sharing Borders: Studies in Contemporary Singaporean-Malaysian Literature (2009) as well as his One Sky, Many Horizons: Studies in Malaysian Literature in English (2007). He also edited Peninsular Muse: Interviews with Modern Malaysian and Singaporean Poets, Novelists and Dramatists (2007) and Chuah Guat Eng: The Old House and Other Stories (2007). Chuah Guat Eng (born 1943), is a Malaysian Peranakan Chinese writer and is considered as Malaysia’s first English-language woman novelist. Professor Quayum has also coedited Petals of Hibiscus: A Representative Anthology of Malaysian Literature in English (2003); The Merlion and the Hibiscus: Contemporary Short Stories from Singapore and Malaysia (2002); Singaporean Literature in English: A Critical Reader (2002); Malaysian Literature in English: A Critical Reader (2001); and In Blue Silk Girdle: Stories from Malaysia and Singapore (1998).

Professor Quayum’s coeditor for Writing a Nation: Essays on Malaysian Literature is Associate Professor Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf, who teaches English at International Islamic University Malaysia. Professor Faridah earned degrees in English from the University of Waikato, New Zealand, the University of Liverpool, UK; and Flinders University of South Australia.

She has written The Islamic Interpretation of ‘Tragic Hero’ in Shakespearean Tragedies (2001, 2004) and co-authored with Professor Quayum Colonial to Global: Malaysian Women’s Writing in English, 1940s – 1990s (2001, 2003). Professor Faridah is also a poet, and has published the collection The Art of Naming: A Muslim Woman’s Journey (2006). An example of her poetry available online was published by Deep South, an online literary journal based in New Zealand. Her poem Technofools was first published in 1996:

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Technofools

 

Technogame, technolove,

technofools.

 

When game/love/foolery

breaks down,

Each finds strength in

wanting.

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This spare poem plays with concepts of modern technology and the tendency to coin new words to fit newly invented scientific concepts. When mixed with eternal human emotional issues such as love, this new way of speaking can leave much unsatisfied.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)