The Weight of Our Sky

The Weight of Our Sky
Author: Hanna Alkaf
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-02-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1534426108

A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut. Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied. A trip to the movies after school turns into a nightmare when the city erupts into violent race riots between the Chinese and the Malay. When gangsters come into the theater and hold movie-goers hostage, Mel, a Malay, is saved by a Chinese woman, but has to leave her best friend behind to die. On their journey through town, Mel sees for herself the devastation caused by the riots. In her village, a neighbor tells her that her mother, a nurse, was called in to help with the many bodies piling up at the hospital. Mel must survive on her own, with the help of a few kind strangers, until she finds her mother. But the djinn in her mind threatens her ability to cope.

Malaya and its History

Malaya and its History
Author: R. O. Winstedt
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2024-02-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040007015

First published in 1948, Malaya and its History is a history of Malaya ranging from the thousand years of Hindu influence to the eras of Portuguese and Dutch rule, and from the establishment of the British protectorate to Malayan independence in 1957. There are chapters on law, trade, industry and the social services. This book will be of interest to students of history, southeast Asian studies, and cultural studies.

Fiction and Faction in the Malay World

Fiction and Faction in the Malay World
Author: Mohamad Rashidi Pakri
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2013-02-14
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1443846511

This book offers a variety of essays and perspectives on some of the foreigners and traders who came to the Malay World and wrote fiction and “faction” (writing that portrays real people or events in a dramatised manner) during their sojourn – regardless of whether they continued to stay in the region, returned to their home country, or migrated to another country. The essays tend to cross generic and disciplinary boundaries as the contributors of this book are drawn from various fields within the arts and humanities, including history, geography, language and literature and translation. All of them, however, deal with colonial texts, the Malay World, or primarily cover the period from the 18th to the 20th century. Including readings of fiction, diaries, vignettes, letters written by traders or colonial officers, the uniqueness of this book lies in the personal, private and/or informal nature of the various documents studied. The encounters of these ‘outsiders’ with the ‘natives’ not only offer fascinating historical insights into the Malay World, but, to a significant degree, vividly express the views and personalities of the writers themselves, as mediated through their assigned commercial and colonial roles.

Traditionalism and the Ascendancy of the Malay Ruling Class in Malaya

Traditionalism and the Ascendancy of the Malay Ruling Class in Malaya
Author: Donna J. Amoroso
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2014-05-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9971698145

In this original and perceptive study Donna J. Amoroso argues that the Malay elites' preeminent position after the Second World War had much to do with how British colonialism reshaped old idioms and rituals _ helping to (re)invent a tradition. In doing so she illuminates the ways that traditionalism reordered the Malay political world, the nature of the state and the political economy of leadership. In the postwar era, traditionalism began to play a new role: it became a weapon which the Malay aristocracy employed to resist British plans for a Malayan Union and to neutralise the challenge coming groups representing a more radical, democratic perspective and even hijacking their themes. Leading this conservative struggle was Dato Onn bin Jaafar, who not only successfully helped shape Malay opposition to the Malayan Union but was also instrumental in the creation of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) that eventually came to personify an ïacceptable Malay nationalismÍ. Traditionalism and the Ascendancy of the Malay Ruling Class in Colonial Malaya is an important contribution to the history of colonial Malaya and, more generally, to the history of ideas in late colonial societies.

Abdullah Bin Abdul Kadir Munshi (In 2 Volumes)

Abdullah Bin Abdul Kadir Munshi (In 2 Volumes)
Author: Hadijah Bte Rahmat
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 1276
Release: 2020-12-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9811205817

This book, Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi, is the most comprehensive, multi-disciplinary studies on Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, widely known as Munshi Abdullah (1796-1854). He was a prominent literary figure and thinker in the Malay world in the 19th century and was also an early 'pioneer' of Singapore.The author, Professor Hadijah Rahmat, has spent more than 25 years studying Munshi Abdullah since her PhD studies in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 1992 to date. This book is covered in two volumes and is based on her research conducted using unexplored primary sources at several missionaries' archives at SOAS, London, Houghton Library, University Harvard, Library of Congress, Leiden University, KITVL, Holland, and the Perpustakaan Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta.The book consists of numerous academic papers presented at the regional and international seminars, and also published in international journals and as chapters of books. Besides academic papers, the excerpt of play titled Munsyi, sketches, poetry, and song, and interviews by the national media are also included.This book provides new insight into Abdullah's life, backgrounds, writings, his influences and legacies and the reactions and thought provoking views of the western and eastern scholars on Abdullah. The book is indeed the key reference for studies on Munshi Abdullah, Malay literature, and the history of Singapore, Malaysia, and colonialism in Southeast Asia.

Tribal Communities in the Malay World

Tribal Communities in the Malay World
Author: Geoffrey Benjamin
Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2003-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9814517410

The Malay World (Alam Melayu), spanning the Malay Peninsula, much of Sumatra, and parts of Borneo, has long contained within it a variety of populations. Most of the Malays have been organized into the different kingdoms (kerajaan Melayu) from which they have derived their identity. But the territories of those kingdoms have also included tribal peoples - both Malay and non-Malay - who have held themselves apart from those kingdoms in varying degrees. In the last three decades, research on these tribal societies has aroused increasing interest.This book explores the ways in which the character of these societies relates to the Malay kingdoms that have held power in the region for many centuries past, as well as to the modern nation-states of the region. It brings together researchers committed to comparative analysis of the tribal groups living on either side of the Malacca Straits - in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. New theoretical and descriptive approaches are presented for the study of the social and cultural continuities and discontinuities manifested by tribal life in the region.