Fairhaven: An Unrealistic Optimistic Rendition of the Future
4 min read
CLIMATE FICTION IS, in general, any kind of literature that deals with the effects of climate change. It is often…
A Story About Coping, Co-Dependency and Community
4 min read
A book review of Deplorable Conversations With Cats and Other Distractions by Yeoh Jo-Ann.
THE WEEK COCONUT, his late sister’…
A Subtly Empowering Tale of a Woman Between Worlds
3 min read
Note: This review may contain spoilers.
Book Review: The Best of Malaysian Short Fiction in English 2010-2020, Exploring the Faculty of Malaysia’s Fictioneers
4 min read
WHAT MAKES A short story successful? In reading The Best of Malaysian Short Fiction in English 2010-2020 (which, as an aside, has a really gorgeous cover), I fo...
The Penang Adventure
2 min read
IT'S VERY HARD not to get swept along by Raymond Flower's jaunty approach to Penang's history in his latest offering, The Penang Adventure. The book opens on...
Malaysia’s chance for some serious soul-searching
3 min read
Sixty odd years after Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad first deliberated on politics as a student and almost three decades after he assumed the office of the Prime Minis...
Colonial Penang's pre-modern roots
3 min read
Penang under the East India Company 1786-1858Andrew BarberAB&A. 2009; Hard cover;160 pagesReview by Ooi Kee BengThe salience of the approach Barber ch...
Parables, Prophets & Pillocks
5 min read
Datuk Tay Hooi Keat, “Weld Quay, Penang”, 1968-80, 60 x 90 cm, oil on canvas.Cecil Rajendra is a pioneering human rights lawyer and acclaimed...
The Regional Span Of Sun Yat Sen’s Republicanism
3 min read
Few dates in East Asia’s recent past act so well as a watershed for the scholar writing on the modern history of the region as October 10, 1911 does. On t...
The Shafee Yahaya Story: Estate Boy to aca Chief
5 min read
THIS NARRATIVE ABOUT Datuk Shafee Yahaya, former Anti Corruption Agency (ACA) chief who assumed the position from June 16, 1994 to September 11, 1998, written b...
Cities, People & the Economy: A Study on Positioning Penang
6 min read
PENANG HAS ALWAYS had to depend on its people for economic survival. For the last 40 years, this has been achieved through a development model focused on medium...
Straits Muslims: Diasporas of the Northern Passage of the Straits of Malacca
4 min read
MARITIME SOUTH-EAST ASIA WAS – and is – a region filled with port cities. Such urban centres tend to concentrate both power and money. But more th...