catalogue 2011 ARECA BOOKS is a rapidly-growing niche publisher based in Penang, Malaysia. Its ethos combines editorial intelligence, research rigour, elegant production and marketing flair, appealing to both popular readers and academic researchers of Malaysia and Southeast Asia. The imprint has a deserved reputation for pioneering works that celebrate genius loci and sense of a place. Its richly-illustrated publications are enduring contributions to the fields of cultural heritage, social history, visual arts and the environment. Our TEAM Abdur-Razzaq Lubis Khoo Salma Nasution Director Managing Director [email protected] [email protected] Lubis is a co-founder of Areca Salma is a co-founder of Areca Books and is responsible for Books and is responsible for press enquiries, promotions and overall coordination and book review copies. A researcher and commissions. A researcher, author, he has written on the writer and heritage advocate, history of Perak, Selangor and she has written extensively on Kuala Lumpur and the Sumatran Penang’s history, culture and diaspora community. architecture. Gareth Richards Yeap Ee Ban Editor Marketing Manager [email protected] [email protected] A former academic, Gareth is Yeap has overall administrative Areca Books’ editor, responsible responsibility for Areca Books, for manuscript appraisal, editing and particularly for marketing, and author liaison. As a writer, sales and trade orders, he has published on social including liaison with documentary photography, distributors and retailers. international politics and civil society in southeast Asia. Nazurah Hassan Goh Hun Meng Publishing Assistant Designer [email protected] [email protected] A graduate in architecture with Founder of his own company an interest in heritage, Nazurah Panca Design, Hun Meng is a provides administrative designer who specialises in all assistance at every stage of the aspects of book design for publication process, responsible Areca Books – cover design, for support with planning, layout, typesetting, image production and publicity. processing – through to final production. CONTENTS Authors 2 Penang 3 Perak 15 Children 17 The Straits Settlements 19 Malaysia 21 Miscellaneous 22 From Penang Through Gilded Doors Order Form 23 see page 7 Index 25 Stay in touch If you would like to receive email news of Areca Books about our latest publications, special offers and book launches, please write to [email protected] Follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/arecabookspenang This catalogue is also available to view at www.arecabooks.com From Portraits of Penang: Little India see page 3 From Hail, Penang! From Perak Postcards 1890s–1940s From Heritage Trees of Penang see page 4 see page 15 see page 3 AUTHORS Authors are the lifeblood for any publisher. Their imagination, persistence and passion create the manuscripts and images that end up as finely-produced books. These then find a growing readership, both locally and internationally. Over the past few years Areca Books has nurtured the talent of many established and new authors – as well as photographers, illustrators and designers – to critical and popular acclaim. Top row: Malcolm Wade, Ric Francis, Pindar Sidisunthorn. Middle Row: Reviews of Portraits of Penang: Little India, Perak Postcards 1890s –1940s, Hail, Penang! and The Sara Saga. Bottom row: Julia de Bierre, Christine Wu Ramsay, Ooi Cheng Ghee Do you have an idea for a book? Are you currently writing? Are you looking for a publisher? If so, we’d be interested in hearing from you. To find out more about our list and our submission process, please visit our website at www.arecabooks.com or email us [email protected] 2 PENANG Destined to become a classic of A richly illustrated and Malaysian social documentary comprehensive guide to photography Penang’s unique trees NEW NEW TITLE NEW TITLE PORTRAITS OF PENANG: LITTLE INDIA HERITAGE TREES OF PENANG Ooi Cheng Ghee Simon Gardner, Pindar Sidisunthorn and Lai Ee May During the late 1970s Penang was undergoing a fundamental change with the loss of its free port status and a decline in its historic role as an entrepôt. Nowhere was more affected A celebration of 200 trees which form an integral part of the than the enclave known as Little India, home to generations natural, cultural and urban heritage of Penang. This unique of merchants, traders and waterfront labourers. Over the book covers a wide range of both forest and cultivated course of a year Ooi Cheng Ghee created a unique and species, each with a special story to tell. Taken as a whole remarkable photo essay on the life of Little India. The result Heritage Trees of Penang weaves a rich tapestry of the past is a portfolio of 160 outstanding black-and-white images, and present that demonstrates why Penang is such a published here for the first time. With compelling immediacy remarkable place. The unique value of each tree is explored and intimacy Ooi’s images provide a unique vision of people in terms of its contribution to the distinctive character of as ‘they worked, slept, played in the streets’. His Portraits of George Town and Penang Botanic Gardens, as well as its Penang: Little India is destined to become a classic of social spiritual or symbolic significance and its role in traditional documentary photography. lifestyles for food, medicine or other uses. Brief botanical descriptions are included, together with notes on ecology ‘This is not only a work of art; it is a personal statement by and horticultural requirements where appropriate. Richly an observant and intuitive artist, perceptive of the moods illustrated with 72 original watercolours and over 1,200 and sensitivities of a culture that is living’ – Andrew Sheng photographs, this invaluable guide is a beautiful and authoritative companion to Penang’s botanical inheritance. ‘A stunning photo essay, a powerful window on an era like few others. The photographs here breathe with a rare and Simon Gardner is a full-time researcher and writer. Pindar easy vigour, they are of their time, and yet they live now for Sidisunthorn is a full-time researcher, writer and illustrator. posterity, in the present’ – Gareth Richards They are co-authors of A Field Guide to Forest Trees of Northern Thailand (Bangkok, 2000) and Caves of Northern Ooi Cheng Ghee is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Thailand (Bangkok, 2006). Lai Ee May is a lecturer in biology Society, United Kingdom, and has held solo exhibitions at at Disted College, Penang and formerly a research officer at Galeri Seni Mutiara, Penang. He lives in Penang where he the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and Penang Botanic practises as a doctor. Gardens. Areca Books, May 2011 Areca Books, July 2011 Photography / Ethnography Botany / Environment / Heritage Hardcover, 26.7 cm x 29.2 cm, xiv + 214 pages Hardcover, 21.0 cm x 26.5 cm, xiv + 397 pages, 160 black-and-white photographs includes index ISBN 978-967-5719-05-9 72 colour illustrations and 1,200 photographs Price RM100 ISBN 978-967-5719-06-6 Price RM100 3 Funny, poignant and The compelling autobiography insightful memoirs of Penang in of a noted journalist and diplomat 1930s across turbulent decades HAIL, PENANG! THE SARA SAGA George Bilainkin Manicasothy Saravanamuttu In the late 1920s British colonial power in Malaya appeared The decades from the 1930s to the 1960s were hugely at its zenith. Run by a small political and commercial elite on important in the making of modern Asia. They saw the behalf of metropolitan interests, Malaya was the most tumultuous transition from colonial rule through the travails profitable of all Britain’s possessions and likely to remain of war to the eventual attainment of independent that way. Into this scene cam e a young journalist, George nationhood. Manicasothy Saravanamuttu – ‘Sara’ to all and Bilainkin – witty, confident, acerbic and iconoclastic – sundry – was a truly remarkable witness to and participant appointed by chance as editor of Penang’s lively English in these events. From his origins as the son of Ceylon’s most language newspaper The Straits Echo in 1929. Through a prominent political families this gripping memoir traces a series of engaging sketches and reflections he discloses a remarkable journey: cricket loving student at Oxford during wonderfully compelling portrait of Penang, its personalities the Great War, fearless editor of Penang’s English-language and its environs. Looking beyond the complacent colonial newspaper The Straits Echo, resilient internee during the façade Bilainkin grapples directly and indirectly with a wide Japanese Occupation, influential diplomat-at-large during range of topics that have strikingly modern echoes : the the height of the Cold War, and trustworthy confidant to the absurdities of soc ial snobbery; the position of women in great and the good. Written with great panache this revised society; and above all, the fraught nature of race relations. edition of the Sara Saga offers a unique glimpse into history This revised edition of Hail, Penang! offers an original and in the making. And more to this, it crystallizes Sara’s singular provocative glimpse of colonial society that is sure to character – a true ‘global soul’. captivate a new generation of readers. ‘This is a very pleasing book…. It draws a candid, full-length, ‘As a practitioner of the written word, Bilainkin was skilled, real life pen picture of its characterful author… [and] it and exceptionally lively. While his was a flawed personality, describes many of the important historic events which have it was a wonderfully alive human one. In terms of journalism occurred … as seen through the eyes of an always shrewd alone we will not see his like again. And with his Hail, observer of the drama’ – Malcolm Macdonald Penang! he earned his place in Malayan history’ – Ilsa Sharp Manicasothy Saravanamuttu was a legendary journalist and George Bilainkin was a distinguished foreign correspondent esteemed diplomat and the editor of Penang’s The Straits and author who served as editor of Penang’s The Straits Echo (1931–41 and 1945–47).