ASEAN-20TH CENTURY LITERATURES SELECTED POEMS AND SHORT STORIES FROM MALAYSIA Country Coordinator MS. DAYANG KARTINI BINTI AWANG BUJANG Assistant Secretary International Relations Division (Culture) Ministry of Tourism and Culture 1 MALAYSIA INTRODUCTION POEMS Letter from the Bird Community to the Mayor (Surat Dari Masyarakat Burung Kepada Datuk Bandar) Written and translated by Usman Awang Twilight of Conscience (Ufuk Nurani) by A. Samad Said Translated by Harry Aveling A Toilet Paper City (Kota Kertas Tandas) by Baha Zain Translated by Muhammad Haji Salleh In The Distance (Saujana) Written and translated by Kemala chapter twenty-two (ii) (ceritera yang ketiga puluh dua ) Written and translated by Muhammad Haji Salleh A Frying Pan (Kuali Hitam) by Zurinah Hassan Translated by Muhammad Haji Salleh SHORT STORIES Hallucination by Keris Mas Translated by Noraini Md. Yusof A Time Once Past (Pada Suatu Masa Dahulu) by Fatimah Busu Translated by Noraini Md. Yusof Friends (Sahabat) by Anwar Ridhwan Translated by Tanja Jonid BIOGRAPHIES OF WRITERS BIBLIOGRAPHY GLOSSARY MAP OF PENINSULAR MALAYSIA 2 INTRODUCTION Modern Malaysian literature is a true product of history - the result of the clash of indigenous traditions with the colonising ones from the West, most pronounced around the end of the 19th century. This clash also created a new sense of place and function for the writer and his individual consciousness. From then on he/she sought to describe new scenarios and express his/her own perspectives and opinions with more confidence and conviction. Traditional literary formulae were slowly replaced with new and original lines and metaphors, while the verse and the narrative forms were loosened to allow the writer’s personality to be expressed. The Novel The first expressions of the self came, interestingly, through travelogues, where we also may find the early beginnings of the autobiography. Though many (colonial) scholars tended to name Abdullah Munsyi as initiator of change, it was in fact Lauddin, with his Hikayat Nakhoda Muda (Memoirs of a Malayan Family, 1788), Ahmad Rijaluddin with his description of his voyage to Calcutta in 1810, Hikayat Perintah Negeri Benggala, and Tuan Simi with a collection of post-colonial and self-conscious syairs (poets) who laid the groundwork for a long road to literary transformation. It was only after that Abdullah Munsyi barged in with his self-righteous description of his travels along the states of the East Coast of the Malay Peninsula and the events in Singapore in the 1820s–1850s. After that came, arguably a work with elements of the new novel, Hikayat Panglima Nikosa (The Narrative of Nikosa, The Warrior, 1876), written in Sarawak by a journalist Ahmad Shawal bin Abdul Hamid. Here the new was still buried in the old, for change and modernisation is a long process, not a single lonely dot on the empty page of history. The next stage saw the experimentation with the new novel by Syed Syeikh al-Hadi, in his Hikayat Faridah Hanum (The Narrative of Faridah Hanum, 1925), written in Malay, but with Egyptian characters and context. The theme itself, though, was new in the 3 Peninsula, i.e. of the emancipation of women and importantly to choose their life partners. It echoed the concerns raised by Indonesian writers like Marah Rusli, which again reechoed that of Egyptian literature. However, it was the colleague of Syed Syeikh’s, Ahmad Rashid Talu, who in fact, first brought the new narrative genre home to Malaysian characters, and their lives in Penang, Alor Setar and Kuala Lumpur, first lakah Salmah? (Isn’t so, Salmah, 1927), then in Kawan Benar (A True Friend, 1927) and Perangkap Hitam (1935). All these novels foregrounded the social problems of his community and the proposed cures. Then came Ahmad Kato with his singularly fine work, Hikayat Cinta Kemudaan (A Narrative of Young Love, 1929). A novel of love, it describes with empathy the courage of a young couple who dared to choose each other, during the times when this was not the norm, especially when the woman was a divorcee. Told in pure and translucent Malay, it reflected a language of the times, decorous and tangential in its narration. In 1932, another Sarawakian novelist advanced the history of Malaysian literature further, with his Melati Sarawak (The Jasmine of Sarawak). Ahmad Kotot was followed by Abdul Rahim Kajai, a journalist and a short story writer. In his hands the new form found a clear and critical voice. The focus, characteristically, is still the social problems of the community, vis-a-vis in the face of the new immigrants from China, India and the Middle East. His works are now collected in Lain Padang Lain Belalang (Other Fields, Other Grasshoppers, 1961). Among the most illustrious of early modern writers is Ishak Haji Muhammad (Pak Sako). A post-colonial writer, he was a satirist and caricaturist of the British colonial officers and other adventurers. One of them, Putera Gunung Tahan (The True Native of Gunung Tahan, 1957) a British William, was lost in the Malaysian jungles and came under the magical spell of Puteri Bongsu, the natural symbol of the power of the indigenous people of the country. In another pre-war novel, Anak Mat Lela Gila (The Son of the Crazy Mat Lela, reprinted 1966) continued the fashion that writers must be 4 the analysts of social problems. However in this work the young protagonist who was considered as slightly frenzied was the medium through whom the novelist speaks. The New Poetry While prose narratives were making a strong headway, the new poetic form was slower in its development. Poets were comfortable with their age-old pantuns and syairs (poetry), which in fact found a new voice at the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th. In truth, this was the century of Syair Siti Zubaidah, Syair Dandan Setia, Syair Bidasari and also Gurindam 12. The first poets showing some vague elements of the modern were Harun Aminurrashid, Yassin Haji Maamor and Kasmani Haji Arif, in the 1920s and 1930s. It is quite clear that their experiments were very basic and raw – both in their form as well as their themes. Their lines moved along a staccato of images and quite unarranged. This period of experimentation continued through the World War II and right into the 1950s. Post-War Novelists But the post-war years also saw the rise of some new short story writers and novelists. One of the most talented was Kamaluddin Muhammad (Keris Mas). He continued the philosophy of art of his Angkatan Sasterawan 50 (ASAS 50), the 1950’s Writer’s Movement, a group of left-leaning authors who were committed to writing about the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. For them, literature was an instrument of social progress, and subsequently they described the social issues in the villages and the rubber estates. Keris Mas’s post-colonial approach to some of his British characters did not avoid evaluating the colonial government and its officers. Later, however, he moved on to describe the new capitalist Malaysia and the desire to share the country’s riches with other races. 5 In his fine description, it is not wrong to name Keris Mas as the early master of the short story. With a fine sense of the real issues of the country, especially among the labourers and villagers, he was able to capture not only a visual portrait of their predicament, but also the complex tangle of their emotions. The traditional elements of narratives, like irony and even satire, were finely woven into his characters and themes. Keris Mas often juxtaposes two different situations, as in Mereka Tidak Mengerti (They do not Understand), Kejadian di Estet (An Incident in the Estate) and Pemimpin Kecil dari Kuala Semantan (A Chieftain from the Semantan Estuary). The result is a subtle cut, as is often seen in old pantun (poet) verses. The Post-War Verse – Sajak Baru (New Poems) It is interesting to note that Japanese Occupation of Malaya (1941-1945), which caused a great upheaval in the lives of the people, also ushered in a crop of young poets like Masuri S.N., Ahmady Asmara and Muhammad Ariff. But it also unwittingly encouraged a sense of literary identity, a pride of tradition and patriotism. When the British returned after the war, new literary seeds have already been sown. Their poetic lines were more critical – self-conscious trials with the new freedom, and not least describing the economic difficulties of the colonised peoples under the British. Like his colleagues, Masuri’s poems were also products of the political and economic difficulties of the Malays. Sombre but also looking to a brighter future, his poems in fact ‘rejects pessimism, choosing a future of hopes. Thus he was always comparatively level headed and quite unsentimental’. His voice is vibrant, a medium that fitted his themes. Words were measured with a sense of the modern nuances of the language. He nurtured it over several years so it may be able to describe his people and their problems. 6 A. Samad Ismail’s protege, Usman Awang, became a very popular poet and dramatist, not least because of his literary philosophy of ‘the arts for the sake of society’. Usman began with poetry but later branched off into drama, the short story and the novel. His themes are equally close to the people, and like his colleagues continued to describe the squalor of their poverty, as a result of their predicament of being left out of the country’s development. Among his works are Tulang-tulang Berserakan (Scattered Bones, 1966) Salam Benua (Greetings to the Continent, 1982). Arena Wati hailed from an experience of the Malay Archipelago unlike any other Malaysian writer.