Full Description
In a complete collection of works by one of Malaysia's foundational poets, Wong confronts the struggles of cultural displacement.
The poetry of Wong Phui Nam is foundational to Malaysian literature in English. While his early work is often cited in this regard, this edited collection of his poetry and critical essays makes it clear that his lifelong trajectory as a poet and critic is of deep interest. In the Mirror by Wong Phui Nam is a critical exploration of Malaysia's fractured post-colonial identity and literary landscapes.
Like many of his English-speaking peers at the University of Malaya, by the 1960s, Wong became disillusioned with the stark contradictions of writing in a colonial language while striving to build or maintain a national literary tradition. In 1969, when Malaysia's national cultural policy firmly emphasized the primacy of the Bahasa Malaysian language over English, Wong proclaimed, "I no longer wanted to write, at least not in a language I was told was a colonial leftover."
Over the years, however, he returned to poetry in English, often publishing privately. He came to believe that English was the language "most capable of representing our predicament," given the spiritual and cultural vacuums left by colonialism's great ruptures in the region, and the ongoing neocolonial structure of the state and economy. His work challenges the reader to confront the realities of cultural displacement and the complexities of a multi-ethnic society grappling with its past and future.
This collection includes both recent works as well as some of his earlier achievements, starting with How the Hills are Distant, and also includes a foreword linking Wong's work with contemporary literary work in the region. An afterword by Wong's contemporary, Singaporean literary pioneer Edwin Thumboo, completes the volume.
Contents
Critical Introduction by Brandon K. Liew & Daryl Lim Wei Jie
Part 1
1960-1964
Foreword to How the Hills are Distant
How the Hills are Distant
First Notes
Return to the Country
1965-1972
Getting to Speak without a Language
Candles for a Local Osiris
Osiris Transmogrified
1980-1989
Remembering Grandma
Fat Uncle Dying
Last Days in Hospital
Stepmother
Brother
For a Birthday
At the Door
Temple Caves
Mining Camp
Elsewhere than here
Imago
Spirit Rampant
Part II
1990-1995
A Night Easter
Out of the Stony Rubbish: A Personal Perspective on the Writing of
Verse in English in Malaysia
1996-2000
Against the Wilderness
Light Returns
Isis' Complaint
A God Drowns
Our Island Selves
Too Late with Reed or Strings
Moon Night
Snake in the Peacock Flower Tree
Kill Me! Kill Me!
Music for the Dying
At the Graveside
Anubis in Declension
Boars
Nataraja
Advent
Discontents of a Vanished Past
Earth Mother
A Fire Easter
A Poet Beyond the Far South
1992-2005
Reading a Tang Poem
In a Bronze Mirror
Twenty-Two Sonnets
Part III
2003-2019
A Heritage of fragments: An Interview with Wong Phui Nam
The Hidden Papyrus of Hen-Taui (2019)
Advice to Young Poets
In the Mirror: 2001-2022
Woman Dreamt in the Mirror
Into The Vale
Poete Maudite
Maudit
Bardo
Inland Sea
The Revenant
Immortality
Rebirth
The Somnambulant
Moth Man
Creatures
Soul Catchers
The God
Hanpa
After Us
Contagion
Visitant
Tok Seth
The Hangman
Birch
The Seychelles
Kellie's Folly
Ruminations at Dawn
At Eighty-Six
The Aspirant
Song
Afterword by Edwin Thumboo
