MALAY LITERATURE VOLUME 26 NUMBER 1 2013 FAREWELL ABDULLAH HUSSAIN Nurhanan Ilhami Sulaiman
[email protected] Dungun, Terengganu. Gone is the star of Interlok. Malaysian National Laureate Dato’ Abdullah Hussain (1920-2014), passed away of old age (94) on 31 December 2014, at his residence in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. The nation was in shock at the the loss of the country’s great personality in literature. Throughout his writing career he had published 25 novels, three volumes of short stories, nine translations, an autobiography and six biographies. Other than using the pen name Zamroed, he was also known as Roslani Shikin, A.A, Adiwijaya, A.H, Andijaya, Asly, Bintang Kecil, Iskandar Muda and Suryakanta. He was born on 25 March 1920, at Sungai Limau Dalam, Yan, Kedah. Received his early education at Yan Malay School (1926‒1931), and continued at St. Michael Secondary School, Alor Star, Kedah (1932‒1933). Later in 1935, he studied at the Anglo Chinese School, Alor Star, until he passed standard VII. During the Japanese occupation in 1943, he studied for three months at the Syonan Koa Kunrenzo, a Training School for Top Ranking Officers, in Singapore. He had worked as an assistant editor for the Franklin Book Programme and Oxford University Press (1965‒1968); editor of the Angkatan Baru magazine (1965‒1968); research officer for Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) (1968‒1978); head of the DBP’s Language and Literature Unit, Sabah branch (1978‒1979); creative writer at the Centre for Humanities Study in Universiti Sains Malaysia (1979‒1981); head of the Department of Literary Development and Progress in Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (1982), and senior language officer at DBP Brunei.