The best Malaysian books for my suitcase

A while back, I asked Sharon Bakar, the KL- based creative writing teacher, to recommend 5 books by Malaysian authors for me to take back with me to London when I went out to Malaysia for my week’s visit. She put the question to the readers of her blog and local readers and writers recommended a whole range of books. I limited it to 5 books in my request as that hopefully focused everyone on the best books that they could think of. I printed out their list and after one of my book events at an MPH bookstore while I was in KL, I bought the following books - in the end, more than 5 books after all!

A Malaysian Journey by Rehman Rashid - a personal memoir of one man’s journey to discover his homeland. The second edition has just come out, self-published by Rehman. In his introduction to the second edition, he writes movingly about how the success of the book co-incided with the collapse of his marriage and disasters in his journalism career. He had to bring the second edition out himself because no local publisher would touch it, due to elements of the subject matter. I have only just started reading it -he writes very well and evokes Malaysia vividly - and I am intrigued as to what elements in the book caused him such difficulty.

Silverfish New Writing 6 - a collection of short stories by various writers with a Malaysian connection. Some live abroad and others are Westerners living in Malaysia. The standard of writing is very high and the sense of place is stronger than in a number of the other short story collections I’ve come across. and I have been enjoying all the stories I’ve read so far.

This End of the Rainbow by Adibah Amin - a novel by a prominent Malaysian writer and columnist. I haven’t started it yet.

Dark City by Xeus aka Lynette Kwan - a collection of dark and macabre short stories. They are well-written and very readable though the first story made me a bit queasy with it’s graphic and detailed description of sexual abuse and rape, which for an Asian writer is pretty daring, I would say. Xeus has now turned editor and is calling for submissions of dark stories from other Malaysian writers for a second collection Dark City 2 - visit her blog to find out more. The one thing I’d like to see more of in these writings is a greater sense of place, a sense of Malaysia’s city/ cities as places which perhaps are characters in these dark stories or which may contribute to the darkness within the souls of the people who wander through these stories.

Write Out Loud - this was actually a gift by one of the short story writers whose story is in this collection, Ted Mahsun, a Fusion View regular reader and commenter. His surreal story about a a blender being rescued by alien electrical goods made me smile in its charming absurdity. Again, it would be good to get more of a sense that the stories in this collection are taking place in Malaysia - there is a feeling of generic “anyplace” about them which for me weakens their uniqueness as Malaysian stories.

Honk! if You’re Malaysian by Lydia Teh - this was a gift from the author when we met for lunch the other day. She has donated three copies for the Fusion View prize draw and generously added a fourth as my personal copy.

Photo: thanks to stockport.gov.uk