It is beginning to get a little down beat living in this city these days, what with exploding maidens, disappearing doctors and PIs, astonishing incompetence, and unbelievable hubris. It is almost as if the Chinese curse 'may you live in interesting times' is haunting us. It did arouse my baser instincts in the beginning but I don't feel that way anymore. To paraphrase one expat who came into the shop recently: "What's going on here? There are so many major issues all over the world and people here are only interested on who did what to whom." I had to concede that this is a bizarre country.
However, I am elated by two bits of pretty exciting news (for me at any rate) that came my way in the last week. The first is the publication of the book Tales from the Court by Matthew Thomas. (I'll come to the next one later.) So, what's so exciting about it, you may ask? Another writer, another book. Only that Matthew Thomas is sixty-two years old and has never written creatively before (except for legal briefs). His short story appeared in Silverfish New Writing 5. As far as I know, he is the only Silverfish New Writer from Malaysia, out of more than 150, to have come up with his own volume of short stories in English (I am not counting those who have recycled their previously published stories), and ironically it has to happen after we decided to end the series.
I didn't know that he had never written before when he asked me if I liked his story in SNW5. He asked if he could send me some more. I said, sure. I had almost given him up as 'another one of those' when he sent me his manuscript some two years later. I was delighted. Later when I found out that he had just finished writing them whilst engaged in his full-time legal practice, and that these were not stories he had written years ago, I was gobsmacked. He was certainly not going to spend the next ten years congratulating himself and milking the glory from the one short story in SNW5. And Matthew is no one-hit-wonder. He is already working on his next book.
As Mohamed M Keshavjee, his very good friend, says in the afterword to the book, 'In this book, all ... characters talk to us. The author captures the very essence of their being ... and their little games in life ...' In Tales from the Court are little anecdotes of little people, much like in the works of RK Narayan or Jorge Amado, and not grand narratives. This is a book by Malaysians for Malaysians. Matthew refuses to pander.
Tales from the Court is the second book in Silverfish Books' Malaysian Literature in English series. And Malaysian literature, it is. This is what we hope to be doing from now on: complete books by Malaysian authors. Currently we have six more in our line-up. Yes, we are not prolific. We prefer to take our time, work with authors and produce books they can live with, and we can live with. How many more Matthew Thomases are there out there? Please raise your right hand and step forward. We need more of you.
Our aims are modest -- about a dozen or more Malaysian authors producing good books consistently should boost the industry. Win prizes? Why not? A Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region is certainly not inconceivable. The Booker? Okay, I am going to let fly on something that I have kept bottled up for a while now:
Page 90, Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.
'Bomnabhai's wife's earlobes, lengthened with the weight of South African diamonds, so great, so heavy, that one day, from one ear, an earring ripped through, a meteor disappearing with a bloody clonk into her bowl of srikhand.'
Earring? Meteor? If ever there was a schoolgirl simile ... Okay, give her an 'A' for her composition ... clever Form Five schoolgirl ... but a Man Booker? What were they thinking? Is this the epitome of English prose today? (I can imagine the cattiness in the room after the results were announced and she went up to receive her prize ...)
There is more. The book is full of it -- silly similes and stereotypes. (Is there some kind of competition going on, about who can come up with the silliest?)
Anyone surprised why I cannot read books like this anymore? VS Naipaul got it right: '... Indian Writers in English (IWE's) are responsible for creating a body of literature in exile mainly written by writers and read by readers living abroad ...' Yes I know, European and American readers like this shit, it confirms their stereotype and ignorance, and writers make a lot of money. But, again ... a Man Booker? If anyone wrote that at a Silverfish Writing Programme, I will tell them to 'go and take a shower'. (BTW, a customer told us that this book is in the chick-lit section in one major bookshop. Padan muka.)
Gosh, I am making myself all depressed again.
So, while we look forward to rubbishing this year's winner let's go on to the next good thing that happened to me recently. I got my Malaysian International Passport renewed in one hour and fifty-five minutes. Yes, you read that right. They promise a two-hour service with the new kiosks at Pusat Bandar Damansara. I had to test it. It works. Oh boy, does it work. Finally, something in this country works as promised. No form filling, nothing. One passport photo, photocopy of IC, original IC, old passport, two minutes in front of the touch-screen kiosk, and collect your new passport two hours later. Guess what? No queues.
Cool.
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That's great that Matthew came through. He first approached me with the idea of his own collection while I was at Silverfish for one of the launches, maybe for Lovers and Strangers Revisited or The Best of, and I told him to do it and speak to you since we were all there, which he did! We all need that encouragement and nudge, but more importantly, he did the hard part of actually writing the stories! Congrats to Matthew and also Silverfish. This is also the very reason why you need to continue the New Writing series, to attract writers, to give so many new and older voices an outlet and let them rise to the occasion. Look what happened to Wena Poon, who was in three SF books, if I'm not mistaken, and her collection won a major award.
ReplyDeleteSorry I missed you when I was in KL recently, but Seksan's ended around 7:45, a lot later than anyone had planned and everyone was starving. It was good seeing you when you came my way to Kuching!
Robert
Hello Raman,
ReplyDeleteIt is always a pleasure to read you. However, I do disagree over here where you said:
"Indian Writers in English (IWE's) are responsible for creating a body of literature in exile mainly written by writers and read by readers living abroad ...' Yes I know, European and American readers like this shit, it confirms their stereotype and ignorance, and writers make a lot of money."
These are my observations:
I think, simply if for the fact that Indian writers in exile are categorized together and stereotyped in this way; then I disagree. I feel this cannot be further from the truth. Some write to exploit a market...that is true, many plots are obvious with their heavy pretensions and lush words, that is also true.
But Indian writers have come a long way from that time in the 1990s when many newer faces stepped to the fore with sober stories of emigration that simply had to be told.
In living abroad, everything about a homeland lost through history or nostalgia may tend through extreme longing pose itself either a little darkly, be tenderly exaggerated or failing all, offer itself as interesting fodder for the imagination. This is not a fault, just a different aspect to humanity.
Many writers still have strong ties that link them to the Indian sub-continent and I do believe that with the exception of a few, these writers write with the utmost sincerity.
There has been a maturity and new elegance with Indian writers who no longer feel a need to eploit on issues they may have compelled to sketch on with neurotic passion in the past. Rather, their writing is now a little more graceful, avant-garde with its thematic factors, contemplative in its mullings, quieter and more self-contained. There is a daring form of experimentation, there is a stronger form of individuality.
Indian writing has already established itself in the world, there no longer is a need to make oneself heard dramatically or to fight for one's place. The market will always be there, and this feature comprises of both Indian writers writing from India and different generational stories that pop up worldwide.
A newer sophistication is now heralded. This evident at the first instance if I may quote an example with Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, her newest collection of short stories as compared with her first body of work which was the Pulitzer-Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies.
You may view the vast difference in themes and reflective questions posed in her stories.
So too with Vikas Swarup who has just produced a crime thriller in London. He has moved away completely from the usual literary genre from his first novel on India, titled Q&A.
In the present thriller, Swarup expounds on India's caste system for an easy successful benefit.
In Malaysia, we tend to see literary prizes in a reverential way. In the UK today in 2008, it is fashionable to shun them.
Firstly, there are way too many prizes these days for the majority of serious readers and writers, to take them too seriously. Secondly, the UK market has grown very competitive and very very tough. There is a need for higher experimental forms and unusual raconteur forms with regards to contemporary writings or else with the dependancy on classics that continue to stay vogue. Even the obscure classics are now resurrected in playful colourful ways. Thrillers of one kind or another stay safe. Thirdly, everyone knows that prizes are subjective depending on the personalities of judges chosen for any one award for the said year.
A British poster did comment in the Guardian Books Blog more than a year ago that he thought Kiran Desai's winning title to be nothing more than teenage fiction. I think by your description, that you have echoed the same sentiments. :-)
Yet, her writing is not reflective of the next South Asian writer's work.
I believe the UK is already moving away very gradually from Asian historical fiction. This may explain why - and I have been present in the region on both occasions - when Rani Manicka first came out with The Rice Mother in September 2002, there was such a big splash worldwide. And so too, with Tash Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory in March 2005. However, by the momentum of UK publishing time when it comes to trends and popular acceptances, this is already considered "a long time ago."
Forget the merit of literary acumen at this juncture.
Preeta Samarasan's debut in the UK has been dismal. However, stunning her writing in Evening is the Whole Day, it did not take off in the UK or to be more honest, up to now still has not taken off.
A hardback doesn't help in the summer months when everyone is rushing off on holiday, ferrying paperbacks. Many first time books are now in tradeback. All of which are extremely easy to lug around, compared to the hardback. It would have sold better had it come out in September (autumn/winter months) or March (spring).
(I also have other reasons on hand but will not list them here.)
But one thing that convinces me that we simply cannot stereotype writers, is that while Samarasan stays popular in the States, the British book-buyers haven't offered her up as a talking point besides, the usual few in the media who receive a copy of her book, who are obliged to read and review it and a few other serious readers etc. If what you said was true, Raman, she would have sold out by now. Samarasan's title has also not arrived here in Dublin whereas other Indian writers who are published in the UK markets are straightaway sold in Irish bookstores. So Samarasan in these last few months has already lost the Irish market as well. And believe me, it is a big book-buying market. She now has to forge ahead either on her own or with the help of her publishers, with aggressive promotions. That is the only way. A stagnant website with occasional updates simply isn't enough in the competitive British and European publishing markets in 2008.
With the exception of Lahiri with her beautiful graceful style and a few others, most Indian writers who are published in America just aren't received with the same warmth in the UK as they would be in the States. The UK market is funny like that; protective in the most subtle way of its own Indian writers the first time round - meaning those published first of all in the UK and not first of all in the States. The UK market is also tricky and demanding of new complexities in the stories of South Asian writers in this day and age. They are most likely in 2008 to reject the familiar emigration story and expect something more challenging.
However having said this, the British and European and also Australian markets are great loyalists. They will somehow stay loyal to Indian writers already published with them. In this way, Rani Manicka and Tash Aw (although he is Malaysian-Chinese) already have their place. Of course, the fact that they had excellent distribution and awareness in the first instance, will always help. That's why too, they are so tolerant of Rushdie's ever finicky and eccentric prose.
V.S. Naipaul is seen as a relic. He wrote at a different time and age and I doubt very much that he would be familiar with the British publishing of South Asian titles in the new millennium unless it is a big news-piece that may stare out at him from the papers.
Just a few thoughts,
regards, Raman