Photography by Malcolm Foo Photography.
Awarded for the first time at the George Town Literary Festival last November, the Penang Monthly Book Prize will celebrate Malaysian authors for years to come. Publishers, take note!
Penang Monthly is now in its ninth year, and we are looking forward to our tenth anniversary next year (it’s called the Tin Anniversary, by the way). Transformed from the policy-brief Penang Economic Monthly, the city magazine now champions a cultural, political and economic renaissance for the state: “The publication was hugely transformed in late 2009 and has now developed into a shape that more easily fulfils our heightened ambitions,” says editor Datuk Dr Ooi Kee Beng, who is also Executive Director for Penang Institute, the publisher of the magazine.
Seeing Penang as a Culture City as much as a Unesco heritage site and electronic hub, Penang Monthly decided to pronounce that fact by initiating a book prize.
“It is time we celebrate the literary scene in in Malaysia, and a book prize for Malaysian literature, based in Penang, is something that cries out to be done,” says Ooi.
