The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 01 Jun 2013 04:24 PM PDT The pickings are rich in the country's only literary awards that are decided by you, the reader. THIS year's nominees for the Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards in the fiction category are a rich blend of genres, ranging from historical drama and political allegory to crime thrillers. Of course, we also have those inspiring stories about overcoming hardships and the odds for which Malaysians have a definite affinity. And there are love stories to savour too, especially those with the unlikeliest pairings that local readers seem to love. First started in 2008, the Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards aim to put the spotlight on the local literary scene, as well as reward readers for participating in the vote to decide the top three authors in the two categories, fiction and non-fiction. The winning authors will each be awarded cash, trophies and certificates of recognition, while readers who vote will stand a chance to win a RM50 Popular book voucher, one year free Popular card membership, and a book hamper worth RM100. The nominees in each category are the 10 bestselling books in Popular and Harris bookstores nationwide last year. You have until June 23, 2013, to send in your votes for your top three favourite titles in both categories (that's six titles all together). To vote, you can 1) Fill in the form available at all Popular and Harris bookstores nationwide (you can send in as many forms as you like); 2) you can vote online through popular.com.my, bookfestmalaysia.com or facebook.com/BookFestMalaysia (be the 1,000th person to vote online and you have another chance to win a RM100 book hamper); 3) vote through SMS – read the instructions at the top of the form on the left carefully (don't forget the slogan, or you will be disqualified!). All nominated books are available at a 20% discount at all Popular and Harris outlets until Sept 1, 2013. To help you make up your mind about which books you might want to buy, here's a brief introduction to the fiction nominees. Next week, we will run through the non-fiction nominees. The Garden Of Evening Mists: In the cool heights of Cameron Highlands, a connection is made between the survivor of a Japanese concentration camp, Yun Ling, and Aritomo, "a man who had been a gardener of the Emperor of Japan". Aritomo's garden and the art of Japanese gardening are powerful metaphors for the novel's themes such as death and rebirth, and reality and illusion, as Yun Ling looks back at a strange and difficult life. Penang-born Tan Twan Eng is a former advocate and solicitor. In 2007, his first novel, The Gift Of Rain, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. This second novel was shortlisted for the same prize last year and, earlier this year, Tan became the first Malaysian author to win the Man Asian Literary Prize for The Garden Of Evening Mists. A Noble Nyonya: In this story that begins in the early 1900s, young Mey Nya escapes from Thailand to seek refuge in Penang after her aristocratic parents are murdered. Eventually, she rises to become the matriach of a wealthy clan. But along the way to a blissful life, Mey Nya experiences the vicissitudes of a hard life, as she deals with persecution from gangsters and, later, keeping her family from being beheaded by the Japanese during World War II. Esther Low has been teaching English in secondary schools for the last 25 years. The mother of two children was raised in a predominantly English-speaking family and is actively involved in social work. King Of The Sea: A young boy whose father has died meets a ghost who says he is the king of the sea; a missing child returns to bewildered parents as a chicken; and a brash "modern" woman from the city causes havoc when she takes up residence in a small village. These and other magical, strange and lyrical tales are told in this collection of short stories that mix magical realism with whimsy to explore themes of love, loss and longing. Dina Zaman has been actively writing for the Malaysian media since 1993. She is also the author of Night & Day (Rhino Press, 1997) and I Am Muslim (Silverfish Books, 2007) and wrote a monthly column, A Writer's Life, for The Star in 2012. Currently, she's working on a non-fiction book, Holy Men, Holy Women, as part of the API (Asian Public Intellectuals) Fellowship she was awarded last year. Natasha: She's Coming Back To Kill: Sexy 20-year-old beauty and invincible martial artist Natasha has fallen in love with goofy Billy Gates. However, Natasha's on a mission to avenge her parents' murder that happened 10 years ago. Her targets are three drug lords. Can she focus on her vendetta and put her feelings for Billy Gates aside? Arthur Julian Wu was inspired by Erich Segal's romance novel The Love Story and started writing short stories in his youth. Due to work and family commitment, Wu had to put his dreams of becoming a novelist on hold ... until now. Love & Struggle: Beyond The Rubber Estates: The story of two star-crossed lovers who are separated by war is set in a tumultuous period encompassing British rule, World War II and the Japanese Occupation, and then the return of the British. Woven into the romance are historical events and true stories of the hardships experienced by the Indian workers brought into Malaya by the British to work on rubber estates and the struggle – still ongoing today – to be treated fairly and humanely. Former editor of Olivillaku (a popular church magazine in Tamil) Dave Anthony has worked extensively with the rubber tapping community in Malaysia. His passion for storytelling has led him to set up a communications centre and production house for various magazines and docu-dramas. Shadows Beneath The Fronds: A boy and a girl become friends under the shifting shadows of a plantation of palms. Then fate deals them a cruel blow and they are separated. Gnalam pursues her studies and wins a place in university while her friend Saravanan becomes embroiled in crime and violence. Years later, fate brings them together again – but will Saravanan's past destroy Gnalam's shiny present? As a young man, Dublin-born Paul Callan abandoned his first attempt at becoming a novelist to pursue a business career in London. Then he met his Malaysian wife and fell in love with the country as well and now divides his time between homes in Kuala Lumpur and London. Callan's first novel, The Dulang Washer (MPH Publishing, 2011), has been nominated for the 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Tiger Isle: A Government Of Thieves: In this lively political satire, Rekha and her friends race against time to save Tiger Isle and its 30 million inhabitants from the corrupt President Kapalin and his mentor, former president Bhairav. The terrible two seem bent on pushing a divided nation to the brink of World War III and Armageddon. Author and blogger E.S. Shankar is a politically-minded retired auditor who was stirred into writing his satirical take on a troubled society by the state of the world around him. His previous published work is a memoir on his Victoria Institute school days, Let Us Now With Thankfulness. Brickfields & Beyond: Stories From The Past: This collection of short stories combines history and fiction in painting a picture of an almost-forgotten past. Set in and around Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, the stories remembered from the author's childhood reflect the lifestyle of a community that existed 50 years ago, a memory that is in danger of being erased by development and the passing of time. Balan Moses has been writing for almost all his life, first for his school magazine and then as a reporter for the New Straits Times. He spent 34 years in the media before switching to creative writing because, he says, he realised that the latter would be a more suitable outlet for his social commentary. Shadow Play: Kelantanese silk trader Mak Cik Maryam discovers a murder in her own backyard. When she steps up to help solve the crime, she discovers the mysterious world of wayang kulit, a world that is plagued by intense rivalries and sinister black magic. Barbara Ismail is originally from New York, and she holds a Phd in Anthropology from Yale University. For her degree, she spent several years in Kelantan in the 1970s and 1980s, living in Kampong Dusun and Pengkalan Chepa. She also studied wayang Siam and the Kelantanese dialect. Shadow Play is the first novel in her series of Kain Songket Mysteries based in Kelantan. UTube: Inspector Mislan & The UTube Serial Rapes: Four rapes, not just brutal but also recorded and cruelly posted on the Internet. Then there's the bloody murder and one suicide. For Inspector Mislan, no evidence points to the crimes being based on lust or opportunity. He suspects something more sinister is behind it – but will he discover the truth while grappling with a new boss and the hungry media? Rozlan Mohd Noor was an officer with the Royal Malaysian Police for 11 years before opting for a career in human resource management. He worked in several major corporations before starting his own human resources and security consultancy. In 2010, his first novel, 21 Immortals, was shortlisted for the Asia-Pacific Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book. The Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards 2013 are a precursor to BookFest@Malaysia 2013, which will be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from Aug 3 to 11. Admission is with purchase of the BookFest catalogue (RM2.50 each), which will be available at all Popular and Harris bookstores closer to the event's opening date. Entry is free for students aged 18 and below, and senior citizens aged 60 and above. For more information, visit bookfestmalaysia.com. |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2013 01:25 AM PDT HERE'S the complete list of Popular-The Star Readers' Choice Awards nominees of 2013. Fiction 1. The Garden Of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng 2. A Noble Nyonya by Esther Low 3. King Of The Sea by Dina Zaman 4. Natasha: She's Coming Back To Kill by Arthur Julian Wu 5. Love & Struggle: Beyond The Rubber Estates by Dave Anthony 6. Shadows Beneath The Fronds by Paul Callan 7. Tiger Isle: A Government Of Thieves by E.S. Shankar 8. Brickfields & Beyond: Stories From The Past by Balan Moses 9. Shadow Play by Barbara Ismail 10.UTube: Inspector Mislan & The UTube Serial Rapes by Rozlan Mohd Noor Non-fiction 1. Dare To Be A Champion by Lee Chong Wei 2. When I Was A Kid by Chee Ming Boey 3. Syed Mokhtar Albukhary: A Biography by Premilla Mohanlall 4. Telling It Straight by Marina Mahathir 5. Pedalling Around The Peninsula by Sandra Loh 6. Kaleidoscope: The Memoirs Of P.G. Lim by P.G. Lim 7. 'Yasmin, How You Know?' by various authors 8. Ampun Tuanku: A Brief Guide To Constitutional Government by Zaid Ibrahim 9. Thinking Through Malaysia: Culture And Identity In The 21st Century edited by Julian Hopkins & Julian C.H. Lee 10. Mydin: The Untold Story by Dr Siti Hawa Mohd |
| Posted: 01 Jun 2013 04:23 PM PDT This is a well-researched, fascinating and very readable book about the life of an immensely gifted and controversial writer. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath And Life Before Ted THERE is a short, sad news release from the Associated Press dated June 5, 1988, which reads as follows: "HEPTONSTALL, England – First her married name was chiseled off her tombstone three times. Later the stone vanished, and so did its replacement. "Even in death, Sylvia Plath is not at peace. "The admired American poet lies in an unmarked grave high in the Yorkshire hills, a bleak resting place for a tormented soul who killed herself when she was 30." Sylvia Plath's married name was, of course, Hughes, and for many years the great English poet Ted Hughes was reviled as the alleged reason for Plath's suicide. Plath's memory became a feminist cause – here was the beautiful, talented butterfly broken on the wheel of male infidelity. Hughes was cast as the chauvinist destroyer of a genius poet and no effort was spared in sanctifying Plath and denigrating Hughes, even to the extent of chiselling his name from Plath's gravestone. Sooner or later, though, the polarisation had to end; Hughes maintained a dignified silence for many years and then published The Birthday Letters in 1998, shortly before his death. In it he attempted to find a reason, a cause, and the emotion he expressed left little doubt as to the devastation he felt at her loss. Andrew Wilson's biography of Plath up until the moment she meets Hughes neatly avoids embroilment in the controversy but it sheds considerable light on the character of Plath. It could be argued that his choice of title, Mad Girl's Love Song, leads the reader to expect only one thing but, in fact, it is the title of an early poem that was omitted from the Collected Poems release. What Wilson offers, and offers very successfully, is an insight into a complex, difficult character at odds with her times and herself. This is a story whose ending we know far better than its beginning but, as is often the case, knowledge of the beginning serves to illuminate the ending. Plath had a history of self-harming and suicide attempts. According to Philip McCurdy, an early boyfriend, she tried to cut her throat when she was 10 and her face when she was 14. In 1953, when she was 21, she was hospitalised, had ECT (electro-convulsive treatment), slashed her legs and said to her mother, "Mother, the world is so rotten! I want to die! Let's die together." A month later she attempted to drown herself and shortly after that failure took a large number of sleeping pills and crawled into the basement of her home, where she curled up behind a pile of logs and waited to die. She was found in time. Plath's recovery, almost it seemed to some, her renaissance, came suddenly and early in 1954 and she was allowed to resume her studies at the prestigious Smith College. Her academic record was always impressive – she was a consistently high-achieving student – and she was writing almost maniacally, sending off poems and short stories to magazines relentlessly in the hope both of enhancing her reputation and of being paid money she desperately needed to add to the modest support her widowed and hard-working mother was able to give her. As her time at Smith College drew to a close, Plath determined on a Fulbright scholarship and, as was so typical of her, threw everything into her cause. Wilson quotes several of the supporting references she received from the staff of Smith College which are fulsome in their praise of this unusually talented and determined young woman. Her housemother, however, privately saw a different side of her. "She has a gracious personality and is most thoughtful and polite when it is to her advantage," she wrote and in a further note for the staff of Smith's vocational office only, "Sylvia Plath is very self-centred and very selfish. Her talent for writing has made her difficult for the girls to live with." A number of the girls had nicknamed her Silverplate, recognising that there was a thin veneer that she presented to the world. Plath was not only a complex personality, she was also at odds with her time. This is most notably true of her relationship with men. She had dozens of boyfriends, a considerable number of whom were sexual partners. She railed against the double standards of the 1950s when it was deemed acceptable for men to sleep around but not for women to have multiple partners. Even by our own more liberal standards, however, Plath seems to have been unusually man-hungry. Her famous encounter with Hughes concludes the book but immediately after it she goes to Paris to meet the greatest love of her early life, Richard Sassoon. But Sassoon, "unable to make up his mind" about her, had left Paris to avoid meeting her. Four months later she married Ted Hughes. Mad Girl's Love Song is a well-researched, fascinating and very readable book. Wilson's contacts with Plath's old friends and lovers make this an important contribution to understanding the life of an immensely gifted and controversial writer. If I have one reservation it is that Plath's writings do not appear frequently enough; but this is a life, not a work of literary criticism. Amateur psychologists will have a field day with the material Wilson has unearthed; the rest of us will just feel deeply moved and saddened that so much early promise came to such a premature and bitter end. |
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