Reflection on Malaysian Literature in English by Helmy Nadzrin Ahmad Yusoff

Reflection on Malaysian Literature in English (MLIE).

Malaysia literature in English was normally talked about Malaysia scene, whether in politic, culture and also current issue of our respective country. Malaysian culture, however, was the simplest thing that the Malaysian writer going to write because the uniqueness, and the harmony that we had although we live in multiracial society. As example, they loved to talk about the 3 major races in Malaysia which is Malay, Chinese and Indian and in shorts as MaChIn. Malaysia Literature in English (MLIE) is also basically publish locally and was not found international. The language that was use and also the issue was simple and easy to understand, due to Malaysians level of English. The issue was also just about a lighter and simple issue because it will be marketable since it reading was just a leisure hobby for Malaysian. Thus, it was also not the favorable reading tools for Malaysian because they refer more of for comics and entertainment magazine. Besides than that, it was hard to find resources about MLIE because there is not much information given especially in the Internet. Therefore, when student try to make research they face hard time. Despite than that, MLIE was most bilingual and a translated work.

Most of all, I want to know about the future of MLIE. Was it going to rose up and have the same standard like other famous literature or it will die slowly until we do not have any root of own identity in English literature? In the future, will there be more new fresh writer with fresh idea and bring it to the eye of the world? I also want to know why it was not recognize globally. Besides than that, I also want to know why MLIE are seldom appreciated and recognized. Now, when I finish my syllabus of MLIE, I learn that we are still too young in the literature. In other words, we do not have strong background of literary independency like American. I also noticed that Malaysian had recognized the important of English language due to era of globalization. Yet, Malaysian had put English literature as a syllabus at school. This open greater chance of Malaysian English literary writer to have a good career because had a support by government. The MLIE, in the other case was not recognized because their works are seldom published because the publisher thought it would not give any profit.

After learn about MLIE, I learn that to appreciate the piece of works by MLIE writer. I learn that it was not easy to become a successful English literature writer in a country that make English as second language. More than that, I also learn the difficulties faced by the new and old generation of MLIE writer. They had been through hard time to publish their work and some of them are marginalized and move to other country that value them. Malaysian writer was usually had a narrow topic for their piece of work, but yet there are some writer that are bold to pick a new topic like Karim Raslan and Dina Zaman. Yet, Malaysia had slowly accepted their piece of work and some of them are also award as a token of appreciation.

The resource for MLIE piece of work was hard to find. Therefore, I had to struggle a lot to find a resource. I study the way they write literature and they style that each of them have. But yet, there are still blogs and web in the internet that publish their work because Malaysia had recognized MLIE as their own literature.

By Helmy Nadzrin Ahmad Yusoff