Essential Question

Is history evolving?

Yes, history is evolving. From time to time, Malaysian literature has developed maybe not as a whole but small part of it. Back in the days; in the post - Independence Day. English language is being alienated. National language act 1967 and amendment act 1971were created as a means of unity an ethnically fractured nation trough the use of a common language. Because of the emergence of this act, the English educated writers are worried; will their work be appreciated, in other word they are having the feeling of alienation and marginalisation. This phenomenon has made some of the writer move to overseas such as Shirley Lim who moved to USA in 1969 and Ee Tiang Hong who left the country in 1975. Some of the writers convert into Bahasa Malaysia writing like Muhammamd Haji Salleh. But in that difficult time, there are also writer who previously writes in Bahasa Malaysia transform her writing in English language such as Adibah Amin.

But since the vision 2020 were proposed in the mid 1980s, English Language were not seem as the colonised language anymore but it is seem as the one of the important element in the ere of globalisation. The situation has changed; to fulfil the needs of vision 2020, English language are not being alienated or marginalised anymore. This situation has relief the worried of some writer and the emergence of new generation writer such as Dina zaman. Dina Zaman has helped the Malaysian Literature in English although she has not devoted on writing fulltime. The positive changes of Mlie at the mean time are clearly seen and I hope that this great development will continue.