Nazmi Yaakub's Blog, page 2

The needless debate on language

One of Malaysian opposition's parliament member made a fuss about the use of national language at Parliament, yesterday. The needless 'debate' about it can be watched at Youtube. After over than five decades of independent, apparently there some of our parliament members still don't get the meaning of Malay language as an official language.

The fuse were about so called inconsistencies between Article 152 on national language and Article 161 on permission to the members from Sabah and Sarawak natives for using English language.

Dewan Rakyat's speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia as reported in NST today, reminded that the use of national language at Parliament must be respected and all of the members were bound by the Standing Orders which states bahasa Melayu as the house's offical language.

So Pandikar made a clear about that claim. And for that opposition's parliament member, may be he should remember there is a English phrase that said, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Also read: DAP MP's insistence on using English in Parliament draws flak

Reading book review of Thailand's SEA Write Awardee

Bangkok Post published a piece 'Myth, love and blind earthworms' - a book review of Veeraporn Nitiprapha's award-winning novel. Veeraporn had been announced as The SEA Write Award winner last October with her debut novel, A Blind Earthworm In a Labyrinth (the original title, Saiduan Tabod Nai Khaowongkot).

Reading the review, it seems to me the novel is more to popular romance novel than a literary one. It has all ingradient for a light genre reading. But in the other hand, the reviewer remind us to a background of writing process which had a connection with 2010 the Ratchaprasong crackdown of post-Red Shirt protesting.

On one level, the book is pure soap opera, gripping and entertaining. Reading the book twice or more, however, it seems it has been written for the sole purpose of mocking itself...
... The novel was written exactly according to the structure we see in every soap opera after the evening news. Whether it's social or political, some of us tend to have a set of beliefs and myths trusted.

But in other hand, the review showes us how Thailand's SEA Write Award committe constructed a good of commercialized mechanism to promote the award. 

Meski Jauh Dibatasi Bumi: A sort of trilogy for Malaysian literature history

Kata Pengarang, Kata Pembaca (K-PaP) is a book discussion monthly event organized by Malaysian National Writers Association (PENA). It provides a platform for an author (pengarang) and a reader (pembaca) to share their writing process and reading experience respectively.

For the last Saturday event, two books had been chosen by the organizer; a short story compilation and a novel. The first title was Pascasejarah (Posthistory*) by Fahd Razy which won Writing Competition organized by Malaysian Institute of Translation & Books (ITBM), PENA and Berita Harian (BH) for category of short story compilation, a couple of years ago.

While the second title was Meski Jauh Dibatasi Bumi (Although Confined in the Earth*), a novel by Sutung Umar RS and had been discusssed by Malaysian veteran dramatist and political poet, Dinsman. The novel was written based on author personal experience in his early life in Kuala Lumpur and constructed in a way similar to soliloquy in a drama. Meski Jauh Dibatasi Bumi could be said a part of trilogy consist of Api Cinta (The Fire of Love*) and Dia dan Nya (He and His*).

As a reader, Dinsman gave a sort of consciousness not only to other readers for remind them that Meski Jauh Dibatasi Bumi is still a novel; it blended facts and fictions in a way the dividing line between them had been blurred. This happened several times before especially in Api Cinta when it has a striking similarity of Malaysian literary life in 80's and 90's and for its obscene scenes.

But the 'trilogy' in a way is an account of literary life in Kuala Lumpur which had been written by a prominent figure in Malaysian literature. Sutung Umar RS was Dewan Sastera's Editor and had a working experience under the great Usman Awang before the former left Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) to take a position as Literature Editor for BH. For those roles and his involvement in Malaysian literary life bore significant influence to many Malaysian writers from National Laureate to a younger generations.

For this alone, Meski Jauh Dibatasi Bumi must be taken as important novel to read.

Malaysian writers condemning the Paris Attacks

Malaysian writers are and will always condemning the act of killing civilians wherever they were. Either in Paris, Palestine or Syria - its all about the act of terror whatever the labels or ideals were using. And Malaysian novelists, poets, creative writers, academics and essayist must and will not tolerate such act. From time to time, we always express our feeling - sympathy, anger, wisdom and all - that nobody can use whatever excuse to kill another human being.

Fethullah Gulen said in his interview in An Islamic Perspective: Terror and Suicide Attacks:

These all were just words. The Qur'an talks about such "labels." They are things of no value. ut people just kept on killing. Everyone was killing in the name of an ideal.
In the name of these bloody "ideals" many were killed. This was nothing less than terror. Everybody, not only Muslims, was making the same mistake.

I'm confident my fellow writers agree with this.

Among the hashtag using in twitter right now #ParisAttacks or #PorteOuverte.

Lesson from Oceans Literature Award

Maybe Malaysia's literary prize can learn something from The Oceanos Literature Award which is awarded to works in Portuguese. The award, which is based in Brazil, has three stages. In the first stage for this year, 592 literary works were selected, as announced on its website, Itau Cultural. And now the judges had just finished deliberating in the second stage of the judging process, in 14 finalists have been shortlisted.

For the final stage, eight authoritative judges will decide the eventual winners of The Oceanos Literature Award. The first prize winner will receive 100,000 reais, which is equivalent to RM116,000, while the second winner - 60,000 reais (RM69,000). The third prize winner will be awarded 40,000 reais (RM46,000) and the fourth prize is 30,000 reais (RM34,000).

It is not only the selection of works that have been conducted in a transparent manner; a voting system has also been adopted to choose the judges when 60 scholars and writers voted among themselves who will be the judges for a particular year.

The Oceanos Literature Award started in 2003, introduced by a major telecommunication company from Portugal. In a way, this reminds us to a literary competition in Malaysia that was once organized and sponsored by PETRONAS. The competition was warmly and passionately received by our literary circle. Unfortunately the competition was a one-off occasion, and has yet to be replicated.

Learn from Oceans Literature Award

Maybe Malaysia's literary prize can learn something from The Oceanos Literature Award which is awarded to works in Portuguese. The award, which is based in Brazil, has three stages. In the first stage for this year, 592 literary works were selected, as announced on its website, Itau Cultural. And now the judges had just finished deliberating in the second stage of the judging process, in 14 finalists have been shortlisted.

For the final stage, eight authoritative judges will decide the eventual winners of The Oceanos Literature Award. The first prize winner will receive 100,000 reais, which is equivalent to RM116,000, while the second winner - 60,000 reais (RM69,000). The third prize winner will be awarded 40,000 reais (RM46,000) and the fourth prize is 30,000 reais (RM34,000).

It is not only the selection of works that have been conducted in a transparent manner; a voting system has also been adopted to choose the judges when 60 scholars and writers voted among themselves who will be the judges for a particular year.

The Oceanos Literature Award started in 2003, introduced by a major telecommunication company from Portugal. In a way, this reminds us to a literary competition in Malaysia that was once organized and sponsored by PETRONAS. The competition was warmly and passionately received by our literary circle. Unfortunately the competition was a one-off occasion, and has yet to be replicated.

Television series: A better adaptation for novel?

At popMATTERS, M King Adkins wrote a good piece, 'Is Literary Adaptation Better on Film or on Television?' Game of Thrones, Under the Dome (inspired by a Stephen King novel), Backstrom (based on W.G. Persson, Wayward Pines (a trilogy by Blake Crouch) and The Last Ship (William Brinkley) - all of them had been noticed by Adkins as a new way adaptation literary works to television series.

For Adkins, television series has a strength that only just begun to discover, "... lies in its open-endedness. It goes on for longer stretches of time, it burst the bounds of easy resolution, it feels more like real life."

In Malaysia, the producers are more incline towards popular romance novel for television adaptation but from time to time there are literary works that had been produced to a drama. A Trilogy of Lepaskan Aku Kembali Ke Laut by Shaari Isa (translated to Release Me Back to the Sea vol. I, II and III) is one of them. Before it, we had an opportunity to watch 'visual interpretation' of such literary novel like Saudagar Besar dari Kuala Lumpur by National Laureate Keris Mas (had been translated to English by a title The Big Businessman from Kuala Lumpur and in France, Le Grand Commercant de Kuala Lumpur) and Senja Kala (translated to Twilight Time).

But of course we except more literary works to be choose for movie or television adaptation 

'Luka Nering' and 'Kod Michelangelo listed in Dublin International Literary Award 2016

It is still a very long way to see Malay's literary novel win a international award such as Dublin International Literary Award. But today, we got exciting news when a novel by Malim Ghozali Pk, Time of Sorrow which translated by the author himself from Luka Nering and  The Michelangelo Code by Nazehran Jose Ahmad was listed for that prize.

Time of Sorrow and The Michelangelo Code were mentioned among the 160-title in announcement of the 2016 long list for the prize formerly known by the name of IMPAC Dublin. Among others are The Zone of Interest by Martis Amis; Adultery (Paulo Coelho); Colorless Tsukaru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami); How to be Both (Ali Smith); The Temporary Gentleman (Sebastian Barry) and The Snow Queen (Michael Cunningham).

This award based on nomination from libraries from all over the world and it also allow translation works to be nominated.

Read the announcement on their website, International Dublin Literary Award and also on The Irish Times.

Also in our website, BH with short comment from Malim Ghozali Pk himself.

Why literary works must be made compulsory for all students?

1.

Forbes ran a good piece by Chad Orzel - the author of Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist - under the title Why Scientists Should Study Art And Literature.

The very same arguments had been given by our literary circle including National Laureates, writers, educational academicians, activists and other to convince the government especially Education Ministry to scrap the existing practice in dividing science students and literature students.

In present practice, brilliant and good students in their exam results have been directed to science stream, while the ordinary one including weak student had to take others such as arts and literature. What our literary circle want is to make literature subjects as a compulsory for all students.

Orzel gave three reasons why students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields to take humanities classes including literature, arts, history and philosophy in college and explained the benefits for a future scientist can get from those humanity subjects.

The main reason is empathy - just like what Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi wrote when he criticised his former Prime Minister when his leader shared his favourite book was Guinness Book of World Records - because literary works give a various views of how other peoples perceive the world.

Whether that’s the author, or the director, or the actors, or the characters they’re playing, literature will introduce you to people whose experience of the world has been vastly different than yours.

And that’s critically important because the vast majority of people in the world are not you. In fact, modulo the occasional alternate world scenario, you’re a minority of one.

This is critically important because as much as we might like to, science can’t be walled off from other concerns– science is done by people, and we all bring our own history and experiences to the process of doing science. You’ll need to work with, for, and sometimes around these people, and understanding how they look at the world can be enormously helpful to this process. 

Literature can help with this. Not because any of the books you read will provide a perfect analogue for any of the people you meet, but because it’s good practice. If you read a wide range of literature, and study it carefully, you’ll gain experience in seeing how the world looks to other people.

If the reasons gave by our literary experts and educational academicians was taken for granted by a minister or his deputy or their bureaucrats before, may be a glimpse by a physics professor like Orzel and others can found a way to their minds.

2.

Just got a tweet from Muhammad Fakhruddin, a fellow blogger at Oh!Buku that he presented a paper at Asian Bioethics Conference in Philippine. He shared his insight based on Malay's science fiction novel, Transgenik Sifar (Zero Transgenic*) by Sri Rahayu Mohd Yusop; Leksikon Ledang (Ledang Lexicon*) by Nor Azida Ishak and Fadli Al-Akiti and Klon (Clone*) by Zaifuzaman Ahmad. Hope he can share his paper when come back to Malaysia.

And his paper maybe can give a glimpse of hope to see all students read a good Malaysian literary work.

Why literary works must made as a compulsory for all students?

1.

Forbes ran a good piece by Chad Orzel - the author of Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist - under the title Why Scientists Should Study Art And Literature.

The very same arguments had been given by our literary circle including National Laureates, writers, educational academicians, activists and other to convince the government especially Education Ministry to scrap the existing practice in dividing science students and literature students.

In present practice, brilliant and good students in their exam results have been directed to science stream, while the ordinary one including weak student had to take others such as arts and literature. What our literary circle want is to make literature subjects as a compulsory for all students.

Orzel gave three reasons why students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields to take humanities classes including literature, arts, history and philosophy in college and explained the benefits for a future scientist can get from those humanity subjects.

The main reason is empathy - just like what Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi wrote when he criticised his former Prime Minister when his leader shared his favourite book was Guinness Book of World Records - because literary works give a various views of how other peoples perceive the world.

Whether that’s the author, or the director, or the actors, or the characters they’re playing, literature will introduce you to people whose experience of the world has been vastly different than yours.

And that’s critically important because the vast majority of people in the world are not you. In fact, modulo the occasional alternate world scenario, you’re a minority of one.

This is critically important because as much as we might like to, science can’t be walled off from other concerns– science is done by people, and we all bring our own history and experiences to the process of doing science. You’ll need to work with, for, and sometimes around these people, and understanding how they look at the world can be enormously helpful to this process. 

Literature can help with this. Not because any of the books you read will provide a perfect analogue for any of the people you meet, but because it’s good practice. If you read a wide range of literature, and study it carefully, you’ll gain experience in seeing how the world looks to other people.

If the reasons gave by our literary experts and educational academicians was taken for granted by a minister or his deputy or their bureaucrats before, may be a glimpse by a physics professor like Orzel and others can found a way to their minds.

2.

Just got a tweet from Muhammad Fakhruddin, a fellow blogger at Oh!Buku that he presented a paper at Asian Bioethics Conference in Philippine. He shared his insight based on Malay's science fiction novel, Transgenik Sifar (Zero Transgenic*) by Sri Rahayu Mohd Yusop; Leksikon Ledang (Ledang Lexicon*) by Nor Azida Ishak and Fadli Al-Akiti and Klon (Clone*) by Zaifuzaman Ahmad. Hope he can share his paper when come back to Malaysia.

And his paper maybe can give a glimpse of hope to see all students read a good Malaysian literary work.