Dark Prince - Guestblogger: Tunku Halim

Tunku Halim is a Malaysian-born writer living in Tasmania. He started out as a lawyer like me - and guess what? He jumped ship as well to do the writing thing. Unlike me, he is very prolific and has published a number of books: novels, short story collections etc. His tales tend to be dark and macabre and have a deadly twist - like an Asian Roahl Dahl. His book has titles like “44 Cemetery Road” and “The Rape of Martha Teoh”…. very dark indeed!

I am delighted that he has agreed to write a guest piece for Fusion View. Hal writes:

My dad is from the Negri Sembilan royalty. My mother is not. They
divorced when I was very young, so I was essentially brought up as a
KL boy no different from any other kid. That was until the age of 13
when I hopped on a plane and it all changed. Boarding school in
Cheltehenham, followed by University in Sussex, then London where I
attended the Inns of Court School of Law and later post graduate
studies at City University.

Legal Eagle

After 10 years of study in the UK, I returned to KL and chambered at
Shearn Delamore. There I acquainted myself with the tedium of doing
unending lists of documents for court cases and searching for lost
files in the High Court. Great social life though! I then worked for a
property developer. This led to a non-fiction book being published
entitled Everything the Condominium Developer Should Have Told You But
Didn’t. I also began work on a novel and a collection of short
stories.

As I didn’t have a chance to work in the UK , I felt a need to work
overseas. So I shot over to Sydney and found a job (no use of contacts
ok?) as Legal Counsel with a US software company. This was exciting
but stressful stuff. After 4 years I took a sabbatical to write. You
can only negotiate contracts for so much of your life! My first novel
and collection of short stories had already been published by then. I
began work on my second novel, a short story collection and a
biography. After a year, I decided never to return to corporate life.
This was a particularly productive time as I’d published 10 books in
10 years.

The most haunted place in Australia

The fact that Tasmania is the most haunted place in Australia has
nothing to do with me living here! We had lived in Sydney for 10 years
and I felt it was time to move on. There was no job, no family holding
us to a city that was getting more and more congested. My wife and I
had been to Tasmania on holidays and loved the peacefulness, the
beauty of the island and its cooler weather. My dream was to also to
live by the sea. In Tasmania, my dream is fulfilled. Now I can throw
stones into the ever changing seascape and watch for the occasional
pod of dolphins swimming by!

Dark, sinister stories of the macabre do attract me but not because
they are dark or sinister. Rather I’m drawn to supernatural elements.
Something beyond our normal life, something even spiritual perhaps.
Although I’ve written gruesome novels like Vermillion Eye, nowadays I
get more satisfaction from writing more thoughtful pieces like “The
Year 1972″ which appears in my forthcoming short story collection 44
Cemetery Road. I would love to write a ghost story, very gothic, with
suspense and atmosphere.

Distant view of home

It’s easier for me to write about Malaysia because of my geographic
distance from it. This distance provides me with a mental distancing,
an ability to sift out what’s important, what’s unique about the
place. If I lived there I would be too caught up in its own consuming
environment. I’d be eating all the time too. So being far away,
setting a story in Malaysia just seems natural thing to do. Perhaps if
I lived in Malaysia, I’d write about Australia. I’ve written about
Australia though. A good part of Vermillion Eye is set in Sydney. My
story “This Page is Left Intentionally Blank” is also set in Sydney
and won an Fellowship of Australian Writers competition a few years
back. But, yes, most of my work has a Malaysian context.

Current projects

I’m currently working on a children’s encyclopedia of Malaysian
history. It’s a mammoth task as I’m practically doing everything from
taking photographs, Photoshopping, graphic designing and, of course,
the research and writing. It’s taken over 3 years of work. Hopefully
it’ll be out at the end of the year.

I’m also interested in writing a book on creative writing aimed
particularly at Malaysians. Another project is compiling a collection
of writings by Malaysian bloggers.

Other than writing, my other passion is real estate. I’m particularly
interested in regenerating the inner city and new forms of housing. In
Tasmania, I converted a dilapidated shophouse into 6 studio
apartments. These are very compact yet extremely well designed. The
building won a a couple of architectural awards.

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You can find out more about Hal and his writings at http://tunkuhalim.wordpress.com/.