TBNT x Aesop E02 | Voices Unbound: Literature & Reading Culture in KL

Hello everyone! 

In this second special Aēsop episode, we're talking to some special guests that are no strangers to the literary scene in Kuala Lumpur. 

We have Sharon Bakar who is the Managing Director of Word Works SDN BHD. Sharon runs creative writing courses, helps edit and publish writer’s works, and hosts literary events like readings at Seksan Gallery, Bangsar, KL. 

We also have Amir Muhammad who is an independent filmmaker, writer and founder of publication companies Matahari Books and Buku Fixi. 

We have Sharifah Osman with us too. Sharifah is a senior lecturer at the Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at University Malaya Kuala Lumpur. 

And we have Tutu Dutta who is an international nomad who has lived in far flung cities around the world, past decade she has authored 10 books including Timeless Tales of Malaysia and The Blood Prince of Langkasuka. 

We got to pick their brains and it was lovely talking to all of them. We learned a lot and we hope you'll enjoy this episode!

Remember to visit the Aēsop Women's Library next week (14-16 June 2024) at the Aēsop store at The Exchange TRX and IOI City Mall, Putrajaya!

Episode Transcript

(00:17):
Hello, friends and book lovers,Welcome to another episode of two book net
Stalking. We are your friendly booknet duo, Honey Ahmed and Diana Young
here and this is the second episodeof our special series on the Esort Women's
Library twenty twenty four. And ifyou have not checked our first episode,
please do so because it will actuallytell you the kinds of books that you

(00:38):
would find at the Eesort Women's Librarythis year. It's a great privilege to
work with them again. And forthose of you who may not be in
the know. The Eort Women's Libraryis an initiative by the Esopt Company to
highlight and support local literature, andas the title suggests, they focus on
promoting works by women authors which theypurchased from local publishers and booksellers. Yeah,

(00:59):
and for one long golden weekend inthe middle of June, two of
their stores will be transformed into theEast of Women's Library, where the store
shelves will hold books instead of skincare, and visitors to the stores will be
invited to choose one of the booksto bring home with them adopt a book.
So this year there'll be twenty seventitles to choose from there'll be English

(01:19):
titles basa and also Chinese, andsome of the books are even bilingual,
so you know. There are nonfictiontitles in the form of self help,
personal essays, and even travelogs.And then there's also on the fiction side
there's novels, short stories, Pultreycollections as well even a children's book and
a graphic novel. So I thinkit's fair to say there's really something at

(01:41):
the EASOT Women's Library for everyone.And if again, if you like the
full rundown or what's available, checkout our previous episode. It's going to
be in part one and two becausetwenty seven books is a lot of books,
and the podcast just came out lastweek. Just so you know,
the books to be given away area significant part of the EOT Women Library
project, But beyond that, thisproject is an effort by ESOP to do

(02:04):
so much more. They want tobe an advocate formulation, literature, help
relations, celebrate their incredible homegrown talent, and also elevate women's voices. And
that's why we're so excited to havea few guests in the studio with us
today to help us unpack the themeof the East of Women's Library twenty twenty
four. This year, the themeis Voices Unbound, which aims to bring
together literature and the people that bringliterature life in kal. In the first

(02:29):
segment, we'll be speaking with SharonBaker, who is the managing director of
word Works sand Jamberhat, where sheruns creative writing courses and helps writers edit
and publish their works. She alsohosts literary events like readings at Sikson,
a monthly event for local writers atSiksan Gallery in Bangsa. We're also privileged
to help with us Amir Muhammad,the independent filmmaker, writer and founder of

(02:53):
publication companies Matahari Books and Booku Fixi, which has, according to the epigram
dot SG website and i quote,published over two hundred pulp fiction books in
Malay in English since twenty eleven.It won an award from the London Book
Fair and eight of its novels havehad film or TV rights Soul, but
its biggest accomplishment is that its booksare the ones most frequently confiscated by hostel

(03:16):
wardens in local boarding schools. NiceWe wanted to speak to both of you
because you are both, in yourown way, key drivers of the reading
culture. Here in kale So theEast of Women's Library twenty twenty four is

(03:39):
themed Voices Unbound, and both ofyou, Sharon and you Amir, have
been amplifiers of Malaysian writers' voices formany many years. Now come to you,
Sharon first. You run readings atsix Son, a monthly gathering of
writers and readers where the written wordis brought to life by live readings.
I believe you've had these months readingsfor about twenty years now. That's right.

(04:02):
They were started by Bernice Chorley.I always have to acknowledge that because
it tends to get forgotten by people. And we started in January two thousand
and five, so our twentieth aniverseis actually next January and we should celebrate
it in a big way. Andwe've been going almost every month since then

(04:27):
with a great variety of writers.I don't think people acknowledge how incredible that
is because it is don't have justone person at every session. Okay,
what inspired this project and what keepsit going? I think Bernice wanted to
open a space for local writers,to encourage local writers more than anything else,
so that was the primary thing,and I loved it so much that

(04:48):
I said to Bernice, if youever need a hand running this, just
let me know. And then therecame a time two or three years in
when her mother was ill, andso I took over at that point.
And I was terrified to start withbecause I thought, I don't know anyone,
I don't know anything. But Ifound that I really loved it,

(05:09):
and I kind of broadened I thinkthe type of writing that got read in
readings a little bit. And soyeah, I still really enjoy it.
It's still quite a challenge to finddifferent writers every month and to try and
keep my finger on you know,who's publishing what. But yeah, I

(05:30):
don't have enough readers reading in Malaythough, so Americ can probably send a
few more my way. Okay,let's shift to Amidan since we sacked away
very very cunningly just passed the book. Yeah, I'm fine. Terrible a
book publishing? What age? SoAmir. I remembered picking up a Fixi

(05:53):
book. It's the first time Ipicked up a book in Bahasa Malaysia and
it was colloquial. He had alot of very kind of like slang.
You know, I haven't read abook like that before that, you know,
before that, it was either literaryor I guess, I'm not sure,
slightly romantic, trashy. When youstarted fixing, what do you want

(06:13):
to do with the book industry?My main goal is to make money,
and unlike what they say about entrepreneursthat one of the things that entrepreneurs are
supposed to be good at doing ismaking money from things you don't particularly partake
in or don't particularly enjoy. Forexample, you know, maybe you don't

(06:34):
like burgers, but you sell burgersbecause you know there's a market, and
that's one example. Whereas I cannotdo that. I can only work in
a field where it's something I'm interestedin, and since I cannot work for
anybody else, I might as wellmake money from it because otherwise I will,

(06:54):
you know, stuff, So thetwo things I am very fond of
books and movies, So these arethe only two industries that I will work
in. Really, I mean,I don't feel strongly enough about other things.
So fixing specifically, I started itafter attending an event in KL Convention

(07:15):
Center hosted by a book chain whosename we shall not mention, and in
this event they read out the namesof the ten best selling Malay novels because
they have this like awards thing,like popularity awards. And I remember,
you know, listening to those tentitles, and nine of them had hint

(07:36):
or Cassi or Hindu in the title. So I thought I should throw up,
you know. So I ran outto the Klczepond. And so I
thought that if I were a youngerperson, I mean even back then,
I was not that young. IfI walked into a bookshop and looked at
the Malay section, there's nothing Iwould want to read. So I wanted

(07:56):
to start something that will cater toa younger version of myself. So that's
how Book of Fixi started. Theway that Book of Fixi is to a
lot of young people now, booksthat don't necessarily have to do much more
than just be there for you whenyou need them, right, entertainment entertainment,
of course, but also books thathelp you see it's okay to just

(08:20):
be whoever you want to be.And I think that Book of Fixi probably
has a niche in Malaysian literature.What do you think is the factor that
drives the popularity of your books.I don't know. At least some of
it is, just a lot ofit is just dumb luck and good timing
because we started in twenty eleven justwhen social media was becoming more popular.

(08:41):
So I think if it started eventen years before, it would have had
a tougher time. Most of ourwriters had never written a book before,
but some of them had you know, kind of followings on Twitter, Facebook,
and at that time that faithbook waskind of more popular than it is

(09:01):
now among younger people. I mean, so even companies sort of jumped onto
the social media bandwagon. There werethese things called tweet aps. I don't
even remember in the early twenty twelvetwenty thirteen, big companies like Telco,
they were organized gatherings based on orwe are bringing in these tweet famous they

(09:22):
call it right people, and itwould be like a carnival. So books
ended up being part of that,together with fashion and together with selling cookies
that kind of thing, so itbecame a lifestyle thing. So I think
we were fortunate that we started whensocial media was growing, and this would

(09:43):
not have existed in the analogue kindof era. So I think that's probably
the factor where where people packaging aswell was quite sexy, because you know,
we had all these books that arekind of like a karaoke video version
of a book. Right, yoursis actually kind of clean urban. Oh,
but feel to it, right,Okay, Sharon, onto you a

(10:03):
lot of writers actually started at readingsor like you used to do classes.
I still do. I still do. I kidn't quite fairly quiet because word
spreads among people who've done my course, who then tell other people who keep
going course after course. And that'sone of those people. Yes, So

(10:24):
can you tell us a couple ofwriters have actually started out either through your
class or yeah, some very interestingones Sarah's Mannicum. Of course, we
actually had a little writing group becauseI started writing and then a mutual friend
told Sarahs that I was secretly writingin the stuff room at work when I

(10:46):
was supposed to be doing college work, and we formed a little writing group.
Four of us used to meet onFriday nights and write together. And
that's really where Sarah's starts it from. It was quite miraculous, you know.
We would just read out our piecesand they were just so so nice.

(11:07):
And yeah, Sarah's has just goneon from strength to strength, and
I've had the good fortune to publisha couple of her stories and the books
that I've put as well. Andthen well, I see she has actually
edited some stuff with you, andyes, yes, yes, since the
dk DOT Award, she invited meto come and work with her on that
and we put out three collections ofwriting from that as well. So how

(11:33):
important you think it is for writersto support each other, especially for women
writers as well, because I thinkactually amplifies their voices. I think so.
I mean, one writer that reallygot her start with the dk DOT
Award was Hannah alcaf And in thebook Champion Fellas. She was the first
prize winner that year, and shesaid that you know, I couldn't believe

(11:56):
it when I won. It waslike all this validation and then I went
on to kind of to publish TheWay of Us Sky right, and she
hasn't looked back since then, soyou know, it was quite an amazing
thing to have her encouraged like that. The theme this year is Voices Unbound.

(12:18):
So one of the reasons why wereally wanted to speak to you on
this episode was because you actually dothat in a very practical way. You
have people come to your readings andactually read their readings out loud. Yeah,
what do you think the value isin getting authors to read the works
are all out like this. Ithink the main value is connection. That
there's the reader actually connecting with theaudience and seeing how their words reverberate in

(12:43):
that space, and then meeting eachother afterwards and having a chat, you
know, because there's a lot ofinformal networking going on and people are just
having a good time and there's moreof a sense of community that way,
think as well, and I thinkeveryone does feel supported. That's the main

(13:05):
the main one, I think,and then just being invited I think is
in itself encouraging for some of theparticularly newer writers, I suppose, because
people always say writing is such alonely professional because it feels like you're basically
in your own head, and youknow, does anybody actually want to listen
to this? Does anybody actually wantto read this? Will anybody ever buy
my book? And will anybody connectwith me? And I guess in a

(13:28):
way, that's a very real wayof seeing someone with your read Yes,
definitely. I think that's why nowthere's an option for people to listen to
audiobooks. I think often asks us, is that reading, I'm like it
is reading? Of course it isI feel very passionately about that because I'm
a real lover of audio books.Yeah, me too. Yeah, okay,
I mean so you have published FIXIfor quite some time now FIXI books.

(13:52):
Has the reading culture change, Haspeople's tastes in literature locally changed now
that you have a lot more ownvoices, kind of stories that might be
more real event to your own lifeexperiences. I think it's more immediate.
There used to be a perception that, you know, books have to be
respectable and it's something read for youknow edification. Of course, you've you've

(14:15):
always had, you know, trashybooks. I mean, there's always been
part of our culture as well.But the idea that the mainstreaming of entertainment
that is not not so restricted byby certain mores, linguistic mores especially,
So I think that's become more immediate. It becomes more relevant to people's everyday

(14:37):
lives. And what I like seeingin the past few years, past three
years especially is book talk where youknow, there is that negative perception among
people who are not on Twitter,that on on TikTok sorry that you know
it's it's full of people shaking theirbooty. Well, there is that as
well, let us not discount theimportance of that to drive the on me

(15:00):
forward. But there are also peoplewho are very good at reviewing things in
very short, bite sized some ofthem just a few seconds long. So
one of our books became very famouson book talk based on just one video
there was three seconds long. Andbecause of that one video, which was

(15:22):
seen by three hundred thousand people,that book just kept reprinting and we couldn't
believe it. So I'm very grateful. So I think that's the change you
see where it's much more direct.If one reader likes it, they can
communicate instantly. You don't have togo through this gatekeeping things of you know,
being nice to journalists so that theywill write about it, you know,

(15:43):
buying ads. You know. Ithas to connect directly to what people
experience. There's always that question,is a print book still relevant to today's
world? Do we still have youngpeople coming towards books. Do we still
still see that people have this eatfor books nowadays? What do you think
is proper? I think there aremany genres of books that are obsolete.

(16:04):
I mean, back in the day, we used to have phone books if
we wanted to find out somebody's phonenumber because someone was selling it. I
saw someone was selling it on Facebookjust nineteen eighty two. There is a
phone book and if you want todo you know if someone purchased that,
And we used to have this,remember this movie guides Leonard Moulton's movie Guys,

(16:29):
like Every Year You or the Timeoutmovie Guys. You buy to find
reviews a movie. So even cookbooks, for the most part, unless they're
very beautiful, they can be usedas gifts. I mean, you can
get more out of watching a YouTubevideo rather than someone describing it in words.
So those kind of genres are prettymuch obsolete. Like we used to

(16:52):
be a time where every middle classhouse had Encyclopedia Britannica. No more.
But I think novels still survive becauseI think some people are clever enough at
making it part of a lifestyle,Like you are seen reading it on the
train, you pose for it onInstagram. It's hard to do that with
an ebook, you know. Youknow, people will get tired of saying,

(17:15):
oh your kindle again, you know, next to a cup of ca
you know, give me beautiful coverwith these things. Yeah, especially for
the white age or yeah, it'slike and then the kind of special editions
and it becomes more of a collectors. Those are works of art, they
really are, and of course theyfeed into other media as well, Like
a lot of the biggest movies arestill from books or comic books, you

(17:36):
know, so so they still camefrom a kind of print origin. So
that helps to keep it relevant.And certain types of nonfiction, which you
know, drives certain conversations as towhat whatever the guys is. So I
don't think we'll go back to thetime when you know, sometimes they used
to be like this, that onebook everybody has to read. I don't

(17:56):
think there'll be that anymore. Itwill be quite fractured, so everybody has
their own. Classics have changed aswell. People perceive as classics, right,
Like you might not necessarily want toread, you know, those kind
of classics anymore. Yeah, Imean something I've gone with the wind.
I think it's not the most wokechoice. But you know, back in
the day that was like yeah,yeah, people have problems reading Lovecraft because

(18:19):
they think that, you know,he's you know, racist, you know,
but it was a product of itstime, so Sharon, you know,
like sometimes people consider literary activities orbook clubs the providence of people who
are privileged, and you know,like they have time, they have free
time to sit around and talk aboutbooks. What do you think we can
do to persuade more people to seethis as something like community building? You

(18:42):
know, like it's actually part ofa very good question, And I wish
I had an answer to it,but I don't know that they do see
book clubs as being so elitist.I used to belong to a group of
ladies who met every month to discussa book, and we will focus from

(19:02):
all kinds of walks of life,and the idea of sharing your thoughts about
a book are so nice. Youknow, even if you hate the book,
you enjoy talking about Yeah, you'reenjoying When we really don't like a
book. Sometimes you read a bookand you've all kind of liked it.
I think that that happened with onebook we had, that everyone kind of

(19:26):
liked the book, but then weran out of things to say about it
after ten minutes and just went straighton on to eat. If you can
merge just having fun and eating anddrinking together, then I think you will
have a much more fun time.Don't take it too seriously. In the
book choice as well, because Ithink people think that they have to do

(19:48):
literary ish books, but then sometimesthe popular books I don't want that people
want to really you know, sometimesyou when someone chooses a book and other
people don't like it, and theycan be a bit cruel about it.
You know, that breaks your heartwhen it happens to a book that you
love. Yeah, Now, Ithink it's something that we need to maybe

(20:08):
give people more opportunities to come closerto books, which is why I think
that the is a women's library issuch a wonderful thing because it gives people
a chance to reach out to lookat different kinds of books, bea there's
so many genres, there's so manytypes of books in here. Yeah.
I think if you pick up abook and it doesn't speak to you,
you might not necessarily want to.So books are like that. I think.

(20:29):
I think we were lucky that wepicked up books that we liked when
we were younger. I mean,like, I mean, I keep telling
people, you know you can't youshould try again, you know, like
you can't get it righted the firsttry right for reading. Maybe that's a
good question for amor Actually, so, how do you make sure a book
is something that a reader wants toread. How do you decide what books
to publish? Oh, we neverknow. It's still kind of a gamble

(20:52):
every time we do it, becausesometimes I would think, oh, this
will do very well and then ohboy, when I be disappointed and yeah,
a certain type of book, soI thought this one sell at all,
But they end up being very popular. So it's still very much up
to the reader and up to thefirst wave of readers how vigorously they promote
it because they feel that it's somethingthat they enjoyed a lot, so they

(21:15):
want to make sure their friends know. So I think that's the best form
of publicity where you amplify readers' comments. You know, you retweet that literally
retweet, rather than you pushing itso much in a hard sell way.
You can't keep saying, you know, John Looper, he believe because like
if but don't buy, it's notbecause they forgot, it's because they don't
want to buy. Yeah, there'sno guarantee. Yeah, And but what

(21:38):
I find is that people read attheir most at a certain age, in
their late teens and early twenties.So we see the same people who used
to read like five years ago,and they would kind of talk about their
life and they say that, oh, what a shame that I don't have
time to read anymore, right becausethe commute to work, if they're driving,

(21:59):
if you're like everybody is standing upin a train, it's not the
most comfortable way. And then oncethey start having children, So that whole
concept of reading is something to dowhen you had more free time, when
you were studying or when you werejust starting to work. So I found
that after twenty five, I thinkit tends to drop off for our readers.

(22:19):
For our readers, so we haveto keep making it relevant to their
younger siblings, you know, ratherthan trying to push it to the same
people who read us ten years ago, because that wouldn't work. Are you
making it into a movie, though, which is I know, your cunning
plan. Yes, yes, wesaw the rights to some movies. Yeah,
but you know some of them areso bad that when the movie came

(22:41):
out, the book just stop selling. So I should not mention names.
So it's a gamble because I choosenot to get involved in a movie if
it's bought from us, because tome, that's their job. Right.
If you screw it up. That'syour problem. I don't want to be

(23:02):
this, you know, very micromanaged, like, oh why did you cast
this? Why did you cast that? Maybe I should, but I feel
that Okay, your business is tomake that movie, so let's let you
handle it. Yeah, you knowyou talk about very young, younger readers,
right, but do you think that'sthe demographic of people that is reading,
Like are people older than that stillreading or is it only the young

(23:26):
people? And is it increasingly youngpeople. I'll tell you an anecdote about
people older than that. A friendof mine who had just got out of
prison last year. He was inprison for three years, and the first
thing he said when he contacted meis I mean, I've got to tell
you this. In prison after drugsand cigarettes, BUKUFIXI was a popular item

(23:47):
for butter So that made me soproud. So so I don't know how
this got into prison. Somebody wouldhave, you know, donate that maybe
and then you know, whatever theyuse it, they use it. So
yeah, boy, do you havetime in prison because you're not allowed to
have a phone. So yeah,so that's a group we should cultivate.

(24:10):
I think they should be writing classesin prison, and I would like to
do this. Yeah, I wouldlike to, and I think they probably
do have already, but it willprobably be right at the end, you
have to say why you put outbad, you know, so if we
can get away from that, becauseI think most people in prison have amazing
stories. I mean, aside fromI didn't do it, but going beyond

(24:33):
that, I think they would haveamazing stories. And these are the kind
of people you don't think of asyou know, readers. You know,
they can't mention any such wag youknow, kind of thing, but they
have lived interesting lives. So soyeah, I won't be very in favor
of writing workshops with prisoners and shortfilmmaking workshops, So people who want to

(24:57):
help us to do that, I'llbe very happy to do that. And
another group that we never think ofas wanting to hear stories from them is
would be our migrant workers. Ofcourse, they have no free time at
all, right, so but maybewhen they stop working, imagine the stories
they can tell. Imagine what theycan write about their life here, and

(25:21):
they will show us the way wereally are, show how entitled and spoiled
and everything. But I'm sure there'ssome affection, I guess, I hope,
but yeah, because we get socaught up in our own kind of
things, maybe it takes an outsiderin a way that you know, a
lot of developed countries, the firstwave of really good writers came from migrants

(25:44):
or children of migrants. So younotice you think to describe something that people
who are living in it never eventhink to describe because you take it for
granted. So is anybody listening tothis show and you want to start a
reading programming prisons, please contact bothAmi Muhammed and Sharon Bucka. Let's talk
about just a little bit on theIssa Women's Library, you know, the

(26:07):
initiative that has been doing where theychanged their store, the entire store into
a library and people can come.And in fact, me and Diana always
discovered some new books that we ourselvesdon't know because they actually do carefully curate
it. What do you think ofsomething like this, Sharon, to actually
open up. I think it's anabsolutely fantastic idea. I was really cheering

(26:27):
when I heard about it last time. Sadly I didn't manage to make it
there myself, and like only kindof saw secondhand on social media, but
amazing books in people's hands. Whatcould be better? Really? Yeah?
And I think, you know,especially for us, even we are book
people, we are basically what wedo is we look at books all the

(26:48):
time, but we're still unaware ofso many authors out there or so many
books out there. And I thinkmaybe that's, you know, there's something
that we need to do more of. Did we need to find more ways
to be able to help the publicknow about these people? Yes? And
also because they are in three differentlanguages, you know, like I mean,
you started doing translated works, sothis could be a good area for

(27:11):
you to actually check out some booksin Mandarin perhaps, yes, yeah,
maybe you can translate to Basa oryeah, we are translating one book.
We have translated one book from mandriinMalaysian that's coming up. But it's written
by a male. I'm shocked whenI found out. So so, but
yeah, we're quite open. Ithink when it comes to novel writing,

(27:33):
I don't think there's ever been akind of a gender discrimination in Malaysia as
well. In fact, often thereverse, because novel writing is assumed to
be kind of a female domain.So when we first started out in Fixated
by Share coincidence. Our first threewriters were male, and there was a
distributor who turned us down. Hesaid, they have to use female names.

(27:55):
Really yeah, yeah, so butthat was business back in twenty eleven.
But I think it has changed somewhatthen. But back in twenty eleven,
all practically all popular commercial fiction,with one exception, Rumly along Bure
shit, everybody was like female,all had female names that oh some of

(28:15):
them are not women at all,you know, but they just have certain
pseudonyms because a lot more readers arefemale, and they probably because of the
genre. They were romance. SoI think women, who are most of
the readers to begin with, wantedto see romance from a female perspective.
I guess, yeah, I don'tknow why. So even if you have

(28:36):
like a dominant, well dominant inmany ways male character, which is like
the popular thing now, the writershould be a female like like like kind
of. So that's so that's aboutnovel writing. I think in other forms
of writing, and especially in publicdiscourse, it is still very male.

(28:56):
Like any kind of forum to dowith sostra whatever you would expect to see
mainly men men's plainning talking about whywhy this book sells why this book doesn't
sell And so in fact, atany government organized events to do with publishing
or reading another you would see mainlymale faces. So there's that disjuncture there,

(29:18):
but the discrimination doesn't it's not inb gets to write. Let's go
into our second segment. In oursecond segment, we'll be talking to Sharifa
E. Osman and Tota and theyare the editors of Principal Girl Readucts,

(29:44):
which is one of the books thatis going to be on the eastut Women's
Library shelves. Sharifa Aisha Osman isa senior lecturer at the Department of English,
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences inUniversity Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. She
holds a PhD in English literature andher recent research focuses on the section between
feminism and literature for children and youngadults in Malaysia. Tudu Duta is an

(30:06):
international nomad who has lived in farflung cities around the world. In the
past decade, she has authored tenbooks, including Timeless Tales of Malaysia.
Her latest book, The Blood Princeof Lankasuka, was published in twenty twenty
one by Penguin Random House, SoutheastAsia. All right, Sharifa and to
too, welcome to the two booknet Stocking Studio. Thank you so much

(30:30):
for having me inviting us. Yeah, all right, So we are here
to talk to them about Principal Girl, which is on the list of the
EASUT Women's Library this year twenty twentyfour. And I think we want to
pick their brains on what it's liketo be a writer in Malaysia. So
to do, let's start with youfirst. How was your journey to becoming

(30:51):
a writer and also facilitating other womento be writers. So it's actually started
with my daughter. I started areading to her and later on it progress
to us reading together the same books. And eventually she's the one who started
recommending me books to read, likekept me abreast of the latest trends in

(31:15):
children's publishing and young adult literature.So that got me into made me interested
in perhaps writing my own books becauseI felt that I know quite a bit
about it after like spending ten yearsgoing through all those books. So I
started out with actually with retelling folktales because that's how you get to know

(31:36):
the stories that part of this world, and it also teaches you how to
construct plots. Right. So you'retalking about retelling and fook tales, right,
And your book, which you andSharifa edited, is Principal Girl.
Actually part of it is actually retellingor fook loss. Why do you think

(31:56):
is really important for girls to beable to read and something that reflects a
lot more about what they're feeling becauseour folk tale sometimes glazes over a lot
of things, you know, theynever really give you very satisfying read sometimes.
Yeah, can you take that's alittle bit about that? SHERIFFA.
Yeah, Actually I was inspired byTouto's work in children's literature. That's how

(32:21):
I Initially we didn't know each other. I sort of pretty much just called
her and I said, you know, I've been reading your work and I
really enjoy your style, and Ithink there's something here that we could explore.
So that's what we did, Ithink back in twenty sixteen. Right.
So we had tea and then wediscussed the project and we conceptualized it
together, and I said, whydon't we provide this kind of volume where

(32:43):
we have stories that are based onour folk tales, whether they're set in
Malaysia themselves or in the region inSoutheast Asia. And we get people to
contribute stories and to retell these FORLKtales from their perspective, and it doesn't
have to be a traditional retelling.It can even be inspired by you can
have allusions to the original folk tales. But these are characters that readers would

(33:07):
recognize. Readers from our part ofthe world would be able to relate to
because they've heard these stories before,either being told by their mothers or grandmothers,
or they've read it in a collection, but just told in a way
that's fresh, that's new, that'sinnovative. And of course it's important because,
as you well said, right,many of the FORLK tales that we've
gotten used to in the collections thatwe find in the stores, they tend

(33:30):
to show these female characters in avery conservative way, in a very way
that's submissive, right, in waysthat we don't often think of as assertive
or having any kind of real agency. And they tend to revolve around marriage
plots, right, or they servesome kind of purpose, like the damsel

(33:51):
in distress or the evil stepmother.It's all very stereotypical, and we wanted
to move away from those kinds ofstories and to see what our Malaysian talents
could come up with. Probably,as Malaysian women and readers, we probably
think we're very much westernized in thatway, right We read their fairy stories

(34:12):
from when we're really young. Weknow their stories very very well, don't
we Probably a lot more than weknow Malaysian stories. You are an educator,
so you know you probably deal witha lot more young people and the
books that they read. Do youthink do you agree that you know they
need to have more contact with Malaysianstories. Do you think that that's a
gap in their you know, what'savailable to them, right, certainly,

(34:37):
I think even from my own personalexperience as a mother, in fact,
my journey is pretty much like todo so. Although I'm not a creative
writer, I write about children's litureand academic and scholarly context. But in
the process of doing my research,and that's how I was trying to come
up with some kind of a likea database of all the writings from this
part of the world. And there'sreally not that many, at least when

(34:58):
I was working about you know,started on it about eight to ten years
ago. But now I think thereis this increasing interest and it's a really
healthy development. And I'm so happyabout it because it shows that, you
know, what we instinctively thought couldhappen has already started to happen. And
a lot of our own local authorsare, you know, moving in this
direction and publishing internationally as well andgetting a lot of attention. And that's

(35:22):
really great because then it's just goingto make people even more interested in their
original folk tales, and especially,as you say, even from Malaysia itself.
And what's even more interesting about PrincipalGirl is that it's not just a
retelling of stories but mostly from women'sperspectives or centering the women's character in the
story. Why was that important toyou in creating this anthology? You know,

(35:47):
my first book is Timeless Tastes ofMalaysia and what should I have?
By the way, thank you.You've been in to several children. Oh
my goodness, that's so amazing.Thank you so much. I actually did
not intend it to be a feministlike retelling, but I was surprised to
see reviews that why do you haveso many like female characters, like women?

(36:12):
You know in this book. Itsort of came as a surprise to
them and it was something that wasnot intentional. Maybe I may have taken
it for granted that girls have avoice. It's not something I sort of
consciously decided on, but that's howI am. Actually, it was actually
shary first idea to publish a bookon folk tales, and she said that

(36:37):
she wanted it to be told froma feminist perspective. You know, all
the stories should be re told tocarry feminist messages, I think. And
yeah, as you said, likecenter the voices of women and girls.
But I think she is a sortof a feminist scholar. Yeah, I
do that, but it may bemore aware that we have to like consciously

(37:00):
write stories which center women, thevoices of women and girls, and hopefully
it makes them feel empowered to takecharge of their destiny and make the best
of their you know, education andtheir life. I think that's the thing.
Me and me and Diana did agender project where we're looking at gender

(37:22):
issues true literature and the fact whenpeople use the word feminism sometimes as a
negative connotation to it, well,actually, at a very basis of what
feminism is, it's actually equality andbeing able to give women the ability to
choose agency. Right, What doyou think the stories in some of the
stories, some of the more contemporarystories in your book, Right, what

(37:43):
do you think that does? Youknow, like it makes people be more
aware or what gender issues are locally. You see some of the stories doing
that. Okay, the gender politicsin school. For example, one of
her behavior characters, it's the maincharacter is she only made friends with guys,

(38:05):
you know, So I suppose thatimplies that maybe she looks down on
other girls, or she thinks it'sbetter to be friends with boys. So
I think it does carry a messagethat maybe you need support, you need
to make friends with girls as wellas guys. You know. The story
about this is by Julia. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very empowering story.

(38:29):
Shows that a girl can take thingsinto her own hand and solve crimes
and actually save the life of anothergirl. Of course she makes use of
her special gifts, like the contextswith the supernatural world, but quite an
empowering story. It's like a likea local Nancy Jew, isn't it,
dude, I guess her from thelocal Piana, Yeah, exactly, which

(38:52):
does not go into gender in oursupernatural people creatures, you know, that
is a whole other con as awhole retelling that needs to be done ladies.
You know, like Principal Girl isa book that very much centers women's
voices. So maybe I'll come toyou next Shearifa. Have you heard of

(39:13):
the Women's Library before this, andwhat do you know about it and what
do you know about what it's tryingto achieve. I found out about it
last year actually because we were awareof the publicity that was done for that.
To be honest, I was wondering, Oh, I'm hoping that maybe
in some way we can contribute tothis discussion, if you know, we

(39:34):
could also get a book out there. I think Principal Girl Reducts was published
somewhere in between. It was rightafter the campaign, but too early to
be considered, so you know.But we were of course very thrilled by
all the authors that were chosen.We thought it was a great selection.
The stores had been beautifully done andyou know, the authors were there to
visit and the lines were impression.You know. I was like, Wow,

(39:57):
people are actually queuing up for booksand this is a huge you know,
I think it's exciting for the readershipin Malaysia. I mean we constantly,
you know, stereotype people and saythings like, oh, you know,
Malaysians just don't read or they're notreading the right kind of stuff.
And I'm thinking, well, youknow, you see the lines here,
I think that doesn't seem to betrue. Right. It's a very healthy

(40:20):
development and I hope it continues.So what they're doing is really great.
Yeah, what are the goals ofthe ASoP Women's Library is of course,
to amplify voices of women writers.Malaysian women writers, and a lot of
them are obscure names because a lotof people don't know about a lot of
the writers that we have out there. Just having your book on that list
and knowing that A is doing whatit can to bring more Malaysian women's voices

(40:46):
to the people. How important isthat do you think for the general public
and for just reading culture in Malaysia. I think it's obviously a very fantastic
initiative because it's bringing together all ofthese diverse voices and the fact that you
know, I just to look atthe list, I think I only knew
like maybe thirty percent of the booksthat were included. Hopefully this will encourage

(41:07):
more people to you know, lookup these authors and read more titles and
even the selected titles too. Ithink the fact that it's available in Chinese
or other languages that's important because Ithink for too long, if you think
about Malaysian authors publishing in English,it's been dominated by English publications. We

(41:29):
don't get to hear voices from otherraces, which I think are extremely important.
They are Malayian, to their voicescount as well, and I think
it's important even you know, inour own projects academically in university and all
that, we try to include thevoices of other Malaysian authors that don't necessarily
publish in English. So it's areflection of something that I hope will continue,

(41:52):
and it's great it's helping to publicizethe works of these authors. Yeah,
their theme this year is vy isUnbound so to Doo. I was
just wondering how has through the yearsof being you know, a writer and
meeting readers, has the reading culturein Malaysia shifted? Have you noticed anything

(42:13):
interesting about how people relate to yourbook for instance, and feeling that they
have more options now for their ownvoices kind of stories. Have you seen
a shift? Maybe? What arethe books that are popular? I think
it's basically basically romance, and horror. So those are the genres that actually

(42:35):
sell a lot, especially if it'swritten in Malay. In English, tends
to be dominated by books publishing thebest because you have to compete with those
books as well. Yes, firstof all, you have a very small
readership, and secondly you have tocompete with like major you know, those

(42:57):
giants and world famous authors who arepublished in the US and UKID that's it's
quite difficult. But another genre whichis coming up, I think it's young
adults. I think even adults arereading them. And this is one field
where even I would say Asians makinga strong showing, you know, like

(43:20):
Iron Widow and those famous books writtenby women of color. I would say
young adult literature is helping to givemore voice to people of color, writers
of color. And the other thingis I think the new publisher Penguin Southeast
Asia. I think it's having quitea bit of an impact and I see

(43:44):
more interest and excitement in books beingpublished by local writers. What about the
readership of your books? Do youfind that it's there's always this perception that
you know, like it's either veryyoung people or very old people reading.
Do you think that's true books?Yes, your books. Yeah, what

(44:06):
what kind of readers your books?I don't think very old people. There's
this subset of book reviewers, thebooks to Grammars. I think they are
very important and they are reaching outto like younger people. So I noticed
that with the Blood Prints of Lancasucathat a lot of books, books and

(44:27):
grammars carried positive reviews, and Ifelt that may have helped the book.
I started out, yes, asa children's writer, so I'm hoping that
the for example, the children whoread that's say, Timeless Tales of Militia,
by now, they would be muchthey'd be older because they also grow
up, so maybe they'll pick upyoung adult books. That's my hope.

(44:52):
I mean, you would like totell us about your latest book, because
you said you're going to mention thatis that young out to be released.
It's actually already published, but releaseend of July. And it's a double
stranded story. One is about theTree protagonists as Nathan, his cousin Juni,
and Sachin. They go to anintensely like competitive private school, so

(45:15):
they are like vucationers. So ina ways they are struggle to find,
like you know, to find theirplace to get some kind of recognition.
Of course, maybe they secretly wantto be popular, but it's not happening.
And then diplomat's daughter, who's abit glamorous, comes and makes friends
with them, and then it sortof gives them a highway profile. So

(45:37):
that's the first trend. So thesecond one is about Nathan's cat, a
cat a cat okay, Yeah,it's a Siamese cat, and he supposed
to be quite valuable because the fathergot it directly from Thailand or something.

(45:58):
And this cat gets lost one night. So they all, you know,
these bookation nots, they have tolearn how to face like real life problems,
you know, to locate this cat. So that's the second strand of
the story. And there's also athird strand not mentioned in the synopsis.
It's about the folklore cats. Soit sort of goes through the entire story
because they tell each other stories aboutcats, okay, but like local like

(46:22):
it's like local based on local footblare, like Lasian or Southeast Asian. There
is, it's actually the entire willOkay, yeah, that is how cats
you secretly rule us they already okay, open secret. How is this new?
I am a person? Present.That's one from Malaysia, one or

(46:44):
two from Malaysia and one because thisis the characters, they are abouokations remember
so sort of annoying, no itall. So they also mentioned like Egyptian
maw and Russian you know, blueand things like that. It's that's very
interesting. We were just talking abouta fight that there's an entire genre of
books now on cats, just catrelated stories and cat related life lessons and

(47:07):
cats talking to people. Yeah,yeah, you're you're in good company to
do. You're in good company.A lot of competition and it's coming out
soon, isn't it Yeah? Endof July. Okay, Wow, there's
something to look out for. Sheriffout. Another two of you have seen
this book be published, not justonce but twice, right, a new

(47:30):
edition has come out. What kindof advice do you think we have to
probably not to the writers who wantto write books, but you know,
like what kind of books do youthink people should look out for? Like
what kind of things do you thinkpeople young people are reading? Now?
What is the reading culture that youare seeing? Probably be among the students
that you interact with more. Okay, I mean who determines what is valuable

(47:55):
or what is strategy right? AndI feel that if I can speak on
behalf of the interaction that I havewith my students. They read across a
very wide range of literature. Ofcourse, in my own courses. Right
now, I'm currently teaching a courseon children's and young adult literature and therefore

(48:17):
third year students, and I've gottenvery great responses from them. They are
very excited about the content I tryto incorporate as much as I can of
Malaysian authors or Asian authors, butalso they learn about the whole tradition of
fairy tales and all these stories thatare coming that are targeted at children and

(48:37):
young adults. So that's my littlebit of contribution. I'm making them read
widely and more diverse kinds of titles. But I think there's also this perhaps
a slight guilt about wanting to orenjoying reading stuff that's meant for younger audiences.
For me, at least, Ihave you know this blanket excuse,

(48:59):
Oh, I do it for recentsearch, right, And that's the best
part of my job. I getto read a whole bunch of these titles
that you know, without any kindof guilt or judgment because this is part
of what I do for work.But for some of my students, I
think they have this kind of awkwardfeeling that am I to grown up for
this kind of stuff? Is it, you know, acceptable to actually be

(49:19):
enjoying a picture book? And thenwhen I introduce them to the complexities of
picture books, there's actually a wholeworld out there. You know, you
can analyze these images in a muchmore nuanced way compared to how a child
would do it, and there's actuallya great pleasure in reading in that way,
as you know, a young adultor even this whole genre called crossover
literature now in which you have adultsreading content that's actually written for much younger

(49:45):
audiences. And I don't think weshould be guilted into enjoying those kinds of
things or to be you know,seen as being indulged in, right,
because you can enjoy great literature atany age, and I think it speaks
to us because it conveys mes justa universal yeah, And I don't think
we should have this kind of boundariesright in terms of oh, you know,

(50:07):
am I going to be judged forreading this or reading that. It's
the same thing with a collection thatfocuses female voices, right, And I
think both Toto and I have saidthis before that more boys should be reading
books like this, yeah, becausewe need feminist allies as well. We
need boys to also know what dogirls think? Right? If you want
to know why is it girls areso complicated? Or how do I you

(50:28):
know, court a girl or makerlike me? Right, you have to
know how women think, right,And I think part of that has to
do with this. If there wasmore engagement from boys and also parental encouragement
and not that kind of sort ofshaming, like are you reading a girl's
booker? Right? I think that'sthat's really wrong. We shouldn't have those
kinds of perceptions. I mean,it's hard enough to get a lot of

(50:52):
boys reading fiction exactly because fiction andlike, I don't know a lot of
men who only would read something ifit educates them or huge them something for
work. They don't necessarily enjoy fictionas much as women do generally. I
mean, I know a lot offiction readers that are men. But yeah,
that's not you know, we've hadinterviews before where they just go,
yeah, but you know, fictionfeels very frivolous, you know, yeah,

(51:14):
yeah, I mean, yeah,yeah, there must be a knife
to the heart of English literature.That's when they're boys. They should be
exhousted in fiction. Exactly. Theleast tendency to to have this line in
between men and women's reading interests isthere not? I feel so well,
I'm hoping that you know, withour literaal majors, we don't have such

(51:37):
a line because we make them readwidely regardless, and we never say like,
oh, this is a woman's bookor a man's book. Right,
It's just a book. It's abook about loss, it's a book about
grief, it's a book about migration. Right. You learn based on those
kinds of themes, and if youhave some kind of theory or political reading
to it, you focus on that. Right. For me, as a
family scholar, I feel there's alsoa disservice to reading book that only feature

(52:00):
the voices of women, because maleauthors can very well be feminists as well
based on the themes they write about. And you know, so it's really
up to how you wish to approachthe text and the kind of richness that
you can draw from the text andthe voice of the author. Chi's good
that we have this initiative really ybecause people can come and pick up something,

(52:22):
and then they can come with friends, then they can pick up different
books. Yeah, yeah, Sois there any of the books on the
list or is a women's library listthat you yourself might want to highlight,
like you're interested in? What wouldyou recommend? Yeah? Which of them
would you choose? You know?Unfortunately each person is only allowed to go
home with one of the books.If you had to make that difficult choice,

(52:45):
which one would you personally go for? Only one? Exactly, only
one. That's really tough. Bringfriends, are go and find the books
in the store. I mean,I'm a huge Glove fans, so of
course I think one of the titleswould be The Fox Wife. So yeah,

(53:05):
I've been eyeing that in bookstores andi haven't been able to get one
copy. So I'm hoping that,you know, there will be at least
one there left in either of theoutlets. And of course I think I'm
actually very interested in these other nonEnglish titles. There are a couple of
the Mandarin ones that are actually bilingualas well. There is one book by

(53:28):
Money in New Way. It's actuallya collection of three poems and she's illustrated
them on every page, and she'swritten one side is in Chinese and the
other sides in English. So yeah, that's very accessible for people who can't
read Chinese. And I think alsopoetry, because we tend to focus more
on pros that poetry doesn't get asmuch attention, and I think it's important
for our readers to have that kindof experience. Yeah, anything you're interested

(53:52):
in to do. Yes, Ithink Dina Zama's the King of the c
and I would also be interested inThe Fox Wife. Besides Tatoo's new book
coming out. Can we expect tohear more about, you know, more
collections coming out from the two ofyou. Yeah, are you editing anything
not together currently, because we've beenquite busy with our own individual projects.

(54:14):
I think any sneak peaks of yourproject, well, they're actually more of
academic edited volumes. So I haveone on the Asian Family actually that's coming
out two volumes. It's called TheAsian Family in Literature and Film, and
it also extends from my own interestsin, you know, reading and writing

(54:34):
about children's literature in particular, andhow the family features such a central institution.
So that's a collaborative project with mycolleague from Japan, So we did
the entire thing, you know,over Google talks, right, yeah,
but that's also coming out in July, and once that one is out,
I'm still working on my own monographabout folkale adaptations, right, but that

(55:00):
one is has a kind of socialjustice theme. So I'm I've got four
or five chapters in which I discussedsome of the stories from the Principal Girl,
but also from other authors like HanAlkaf and a few other Malaysian authors.
Yeah. Yeah, I forgot tomention. Anatan also came up with

(55:21):
another book, A Spoonful of MalaysianMagic, which seems like very refreshing,
you know, so I'm quite Ithink that would be agreed to. Like
to check out nice all right,just to wind it up for further reading

(55:43):
after people go to the Women's Life, if they want to kind of check
out other female write this, likelocal Female, what would you recommend.
One of the books that I've enjoyedmost in the past year has been Chili
Cow's Bone Weight, which is acollection of short stories. They're often very
quirky short stories. Some of themare extremely moving, some of them are

(56:05):
quite disturbing. Actually, there's somedisturbing imagery in there, and there's some
kind of like dystopian fiction in thereabout the future Malaysia which is destroyed by
climate change, which you read andthink, oh my god, this is
you know, this is how it'sgoing to be actually when you when you

(56:27):
read it, and some that areoutright fantasy. Just a beautiful collection,
very balanced. Yeah. So that'spublished by Fixi and published by Fixi.
And I'm not just saying this becausehere can I recommend one more? Okay,
there was one that I loved it. It's a little bit older Hosock
Fung Lake like a mirror. Ohthat was under this last year. It

(56:51):
was how you've already had that one? Okay, that's fantastic. I love
that book, but I also amslightly baffled by it, and I know
I need to read it again.Yeah me too, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I can quite make That'sa good book club choice, isn't it.
You know we should we should havea book club about that one to
discuss those those stories. And you'vegot my mother, Patuo. That was

(57:15):
going to be another of my choices. Yeah, how about you Amy?
From this list, I would recommendMy Mother Patuo by Sarah's Manicam. Very
strong collection of short stories, veryvivid and very honest, talking about the

(57:35):
lived experience of people in a verydirect way, but not sentimental. I
mean, it's not asking for yourpity. It's it's it's like, yeah,
this is the way it is.What are you going to do about
it? That kind of thing.And I really like fried Rice by Erica.
It's a graphic novel, autobiographical aboutthis young artist, you know,
who wants to study overseas and sendsout application, but what really comes to

(58:02):
life is the very ordinary details oflife in her family, in her community,
in her church, that kind ofthing, which is something that is
aside from the fact that the artis quite wonderful, you know, it
has a certain cypia nostalgic kind oflook to it, even though it's said
now, but it's something that Ithink people should notice as well, that

(58:25):
you don't have to do something aboutsomething very groundbreaking or something very stupendous.
Yeah. So it's a lifeless lifekind of approach. And it's mainly pictures,
so don't be intimidated. They're notthat many words. Yeah, yeah,
so yeah, And I would hopepeople who you know actually take books

(58:49):
from ISoP and not just doing itbecause it's free, but because your Malaysians,
you know, So you have anybodyelse do you want to recommend that
it's not on the sub list?This year there's Sue in Moquin. She
runs a bookshop called Tokosu and shepublished her own collection of short stories.

(59:12):
But I mean it lot sort oflooks like a scene, but it's actually
a book. It's a book ofshort stories. And you know, the
name I can't quite recall. Ican see the title in my mind's eye,
but the title of the book itselfescapes me. Something on Digital,
something of something so very modern,very coki often very funny and very invigrating.

(59:37):
I think nothing stuffy about them.So yeah, how to recommend a
book where I can't remember the title, but it's I think it's Something Onto
Digital by Sue Moquinn. Yeah,it was published last year? Cool?
Right? Looking through the list,is there anything that you choose for yourself
sharing? I love the sound ofdeplorable Conversations with cats. Just the title

(01:00:00):
hold me anything to do with kats. I'm happy to see dinner Zaman's King
of the Sea on the new edition'scoming out and she's got more stories in
there. I actually like the newsstories that she's putting into that book,
so that will be it's nice tosee that back. I think one one

(01:00:20):
thing is if there are writers outthere who want to publicize their books,
contact me and come and read readings, because you know, I'm always looking
for people to come and read theirwork at readings, you know, I
need. Yeah, I think Ithink people definitely want to be like they
want a way to get the wordout and make sure that you know,

(01:00:42):
somebody out there things that what they'vewritten, what they've worked on, they've
put the bloodswein tears into is actuallya bound. So thank you so much
for that, Sharon. Okay,okay, thank you so much. Tarifying
to do for joining us in thestudio today, and of course thank you
to Ami Mohammed as well as SharonBaker. It's great that Day took the
time out to answer all our questionsand has been such a scintillating conversation.

(01:01:05):
The Principal Girl in Other Stories isjust one of the books that will be
available at the Esop Women's Library.Don't miss the chance to come collect your
own copy of this collection of wonderfulstories written by Malaysian women, of course,
including a story by Honey as wellme. You also have twenty six
other books to choose from at theEst Women's Library, twenty seven titles in
total, And just to make itclear, there's no purchase necessary. Just

(01:01:28):
choose your preferred volume and take yourown complimentary copyhold. We've outlined all the
books available for the taking in partone and two of the first episode of
this Esort Women's Library podcast series,so be sure to check that out.
Mark the date on your calendar andyou can make a b line for it
so that you know people don't haveto wait in the queue for so long.
So remember the Est Women's Library ishappening on the fourteenth to the sixteenth

(01:01:50):
of June twenty twenty four only atthe ESOPT stores at the Exchange TRX and
Ioimore Protrajaya. We'll be happy toanswer any questions have any feedback either on
our Facebook account at two Boo neutStocking, our ig at tb at books
or via email at book neut Stockingat gmail dot com. This episode was
brought to you by East of Malaysia. This has been a production of Renegade

(01:02:13):
Radio edited by Haneyahman and produced byStephanie and of course hosted by myself and
Diana Young. Thanks for listening toeveryone, and see you at the Issa
Woman's Library in like a week's time.