8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

1/8

This article was downloaded by: [New York University]On: 26 May 2015, At: 19:51Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

World Literature Written in EnglishPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpw19

An interview with K. S. ManiamBernard Wilson

a

a Flinders University of South Australia

Published online: 18 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Bernard Wilson (1993) An interview with K. S. Maniam, World Literature Written in English, 33:2, 17-23,

DOI: 10.1080/17449859308589203

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449859308589203

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in thepublications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representationsor warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Anyopinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the

views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should bendependently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses,actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoevercaused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449859308589203http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/17449859308589203http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449859308589203http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/17449859308589203http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpw19

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

2/8

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

3/8

linear and most of my work reflects this. By this I mean more than lateral

writing; I am searching for both an overview and an underview - for depth.

This is how I play with the linear concept of time in my most recent novel,

  In

A Far Country.

 We should think not so much of time in the conventional sense

but of the experiences within a culture, and how that culture can be linked or

adapted to something else - a new country, a new soil. Writing is like peeling

off an onion skin to get towards the centre, and though you can peel many

layers you can never arrive at the true heart because the heart is yet another

layer.

In

  The Return

  the final confrontation for Ravi's father - the final coming

to awareness is filled with despair, but this is a lesson and statement that Ravi

himself must scrutinise. R avi cannot entirely go back to the old culture for he

cannot eradicate from his consciousness the education and language that he has

acquired. Therefore there must be a combining of the two worlds, and how he

achieves this is demonstrated in the poem at the conclusion o f the novel - using

English to contain certain cultural blind spots that he has developed. This is

intended in a positive way because I have always been concerned with getting

all cultures to join together rather than advocating the supremacy of one cul-

ture.

 In m any of the stories I have written I have seen how m indless people can

become when they get into the clutches of one culture and that culture limits

the person's existence, limits the person's imagination and feelings. I see it as

a kind of obliteration and this is what I am trying to remove.

Wh at is your view of the current social and political structures in Ma laysia?

The political structure in M alaysia is now being dominated by M alay ideology.

Perhaps this is logically so because they have been under domination during

the colonial times and they wish to right that imbalance. The belief is that

Malays suffered a setback during the period of British colonialism. During this

time it was considered that the Chinese and Indian Malaysians received prefer-

ential treatment, though that kind of attitude can be q uestioned. But at present,

since independence, it is the solid Malay block that is ruling the whole country.

The re is a diplomatic arrangement in which Chinese are represented through a

nominal number of ministers - about four or five - and the Indian representa-

tion is possibly one full minister and two deputies, but this is a purely tactful

arrangement because the non-Malays do not want to be seen as rocking the

boat. Non-Malays, due to their arrival in Malaysia as migrants, have looked

more to material progress rather than becoming well-known or charismatic

political figures. This existing structure is bound to affect the activities, goals

 8

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

4/8

and progress of all of these communities primarily because each is going to be

overlooked to a certain extent, through one major community trying to pass its

values and sense of social structure onto other people.

Is this imbalan ce likely to become greater and, if

 so ,

  what would be its social

effects?

I think the imbalance will become greater and greater, though I don't think this

will result in the violence that we have seen previously. People have now ac-

cepted the fact that violence does not pay. Forty-five percent of the people in

Malaysia are migrants and they have realised that there is no sense in provok-

ing when provocation would cause them to become victims. The army, which

has, few non-Malays in it, is really in the ruling party's hands, as is the media.

Consequen tly, because the necessary infrastructure is not in place, it is difficult

for other cultural groups to break out and become fully liberated. Some of the

Malay leaders - Mahathir for instance - do see an imbalance in what I call a

cocoon-like existence in the Malay community. Because the community wants

everything Malay preserved, the society is becoming insular and my worry is

that the country is perhaps too inward-looking. We need to look beyond our

own geographic boundaries in many instances, and there are one or two politi-

cians who are now attempting to address this semi-totalitarian position.

Wh at is the function of the English langua ge writer in Ma laysia today? How

do you view the future for such writers?

From the late 1940s up to the 1970s the writer in English in Malaysia had a

good run. There was a great deal of effervescence and exploration of the

writer's role and his relationship with society and politics. Because writers

were just emerging from the colonial experience quite a number linked them-

selves to colonial examples - W.H. Auden, Eliot, John Osborne to some extent.

In poetry they borrowed the rhythms and outlooks of these British examples,

but ultimately found the styles incompatible with their surroundings. You can't

have daffodils in M alaysia, and you can't have this four line verse based on the

iambic pentameter.

Some of the more perceptive poets, among them Wong Phui Nam and

Edwin Thumboo, moved away from these limitations and responded by trying

to create an artificial language called Engmalchin which is English based with

Malay and Chinese words added. But even this was somewhat illogical be-

cause Indians were omitted. Finally, they realised that they were - to an extent

19

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

5/8

- faking things, so they decided to enter what I would call the writer's pe rson-

ality . They lived in a certain country, ate certain foods, came from various

cultures, and as long as they made a response to this through English all of

these factors would emerge through the language and modify the language.

Tha t is why , for exam ple, free verse written by Ma laysians is different from

the free verse written by British of course, and at least now this Malaysian

writing is able to accom modate the stage of development we are in.

Writers in English began to study themselves because it was a time of

redrawing what w as happening in the Malaysian social and political scene, bu t

in a paradoxical manner it was plays that seemed to emerge during this period

of the seventies. Patrick Yeoh wrote and staged a play called

 The Need to Be

which examined the position and the future of the Chinese, and another who

dealt with similar themes was E dward D orall. In the seventies the dram a scene

seemed more developed and received more attention because these writers were

trying to share common anxieties in a rather muted, but relatively open way.

Lee Kok Liang began a similar examination of an outside life in

 Mutes in the

Sun,

 and in 1976 Lloyd Fernando's

 Scorpion Orchid

 attempted to deal with the

barriers, prejudices and ambitions that emerge when cultural integration is at-

tempted. With work such as this writers re-emerged on the local scene. In 1981

I came out with

  The Return

 and quite a number of other stories, for example,

and between all of us there are at least two generations of writers who have

maintained a certain amount of stamina and productivity.

Now the worry seems to be who will succeed us. There is productive

writing coming from Shirley Lim, for example, who has gone to the United

States, Thor Kah Hoong who has written

  Caught in the Middle,

  and Karim

Raslan who has written a number of good short stories. But there are others

who seem to enter short story competitions for two reasons: instant fame and

instant money. Many don't continue with their writing after these suc cesses -

they fall into obscurity or are prey to a deluded sense of literary achievement.

For those of us w ho are involved in this business, the task seems to be to work

harder - though not hastily - to produce more literature in English, so that

students in the Malaysian education system can realise that being a writer in

this language and in this country is not a foreign thing. It is a path to achieve-

ment and to being decently accepted for one's art.

Of course I have been speaking only of the Malaysian and Singaporean

scene, but the other aspect to consider for those writing in English is that they

must compete with everybody else outside who is writing in English. So theirs

is a non-protected position and this is healthy; if you are good enough you will

be accepted outside of these areas. But being in the race with other writers

2

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

6/8

globally ensures more diverse readership and gives us some standing interna-

tionally and, perhaps in a less healthy manner, generates some resentment

among those writers who are using the other language or languages. The writ-

ers in English are the ones who are putting Malaysia on the world literary m ap.

You have produced quite a num ber of short stories. Which do you, in retro-

spect, value most?

Most of the stories I have written have been, or are being, collected.  Plot, The

Aborting, Parablames and Other Stories  contains some of my earlier writing

from about 1976 to 1980, and it is usual that whilst writers don't exactly de-

nounce their earlier work they do sometimes feel a little embarrassed by it. In

many of these stories I was experimenting. The Plot , for exam ple, borrow s

heavily on Con radian techniques in narrative - the various narrators , in telling

the story, begin to see their culture in a different w ay. The P elanduk

(meaning Malaysian deer) combines Indian mythology with a M alaysian situa-

tion and deals with the concept of leading a life that is not denied or deprived

pitted against material greed and the attractions of that style of life. The story

has a sacrificial element which is related to Maricha the deer.

I'm not saying that I particularly value this story but I am attempting to

draw a line through my work. I do like The Loved Flaw and Mala , both of

which are a bout women and how one releases self within a constraining situ a-

tion. With reference to The Loved Flaw , the second woman in Hindu society

in Malaysia is not at all accepted but she does have a relationship with a man

who is married to her sister. How does she give herself a validity for that kind

of existence? In a way I am bringing out these women from the shadows and

showing what kind of power they have even in a society which is based on a

male-dom inated code of ethics. This is more specific to The Loved Flaw , in

which the woman has some sense of release, but in Mala the female charac -

ter is inescapably drawn to the materialistic world.

Do you see women as particularly oppressed in this society?

Well, this is one factor that guides my work, but all writers to a certain extent

like to deal with the oppressed, and if you happen to be oppressed then you

become the subject. I look around me and ask: who needs whatever little skills

I have? Writers are supposed to have a sense of empathy and a humanitarian

instinct.

21

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

7/8

What of your more recent stories?

A newer set of stories that I have coming out under the title  A Hundred Years

After and Other Stories  contains a variety of material. The title story is one

that I like very much. It is a very long story that deals, not with feminine fig-

ures,

 but w ith the character of a retired university lecturer who is coming to the

realisation that his humanity has not been able to express itself and that all his

life has, in fact, been excursions into things that are perishable. He senses now

that he must get to the centre of something permanent. Is it possible to see

himself in a larger context? Who is he? Is he a particle from the creative source

and, if so, why has he overlooked this? The title A Hundred Ye ars After

relates also to a Chekovian story called Gooseberries , and a certain section

of the story highlights how this symbol of thegoo seberrv becomes an image of

nationalism and traps you within something mindless.

I like to think that most self-discovery should be within this life because

the afterlife is so highly specu lative. There is no evidence for what h appens

after death and this lends support to my own view, which is: let's reincarnate

ourselves here in the time and space that we have now. There may well be

another existence which acts as a kind of lifeline to each of us, but as far as I

am concerned I think it is unwise to place too great a trust in a further exis-

tence. So this story attempts to examine a larger universe and in it I do away

with my older literary techniques.

Another story which is related to this theme, and is also coming out in the

same collection, is called Arriving . I suppose - to put it in a jes t - you never

really arrive, and this story subsumes a number of images about people believ-

ing they have reached their destination but ultimately discovering that they

have merely been static. No-one arrives; there is no platform where one can

stand permanently. I use Indians, Chinese, and Indonesians all in movement.

The story addresses itself through the main character who finds joy in being in

a state of always arriving rather than having arrived.

How does your most recent novel In A Far Country  deal with concepts such

as this?

In Malaysia writers are often accused of being communal writers, of having a

clannish outlook. If you are a writer of Indian origin you write about Indians,

if you are a writer of Chinese origin you write about Chinese. In my earlier

writing I didn't consciously plan this but of course you write well about those

things you know best. Consequently, this early writing dealt with Indian prob-

22

8/18/2019 Wilson 1993

8/8

lems, how you fitted or did not fit in to this culture. But as I went further into

writing my writing personality began to assert itself and showed me that I

could not limit myself to this particular preoccupation. I felt that I must open

up wider horizons and bigger worlds to be examined, and so it seems a coinci-

dence that in   In A Far Country I  am not purely looking at an Indian world -

though the main character is of south Indian extraction, but fourth generation

Malaysian. This character examines the relationship with the M alays, with the

Chinese, with himself and his country. It is an objective/subjective work, flit-

ting between the m aterial w orld and the world w ithin him, and poses the ques -

tion: how far has he made the country in which he has lived for so long a

country in his soul? The answer is not positive, he finds that he has not really

achieved a sense of belonging. Ultimately, he begins to unravel the mummy-

cloth of self-preoccupation that is wound around him, and this exploration of

identity does have many positive aspects.

What are you working on now?

Something that extends my preoccupations in In A For C ountry. I am about to

complete a trilogy of plays called  The Skin Trilogy.  These three plays go be-

yond the parameters of concern that

  In A Far Country

  mapped out for itself

The latest plays attempt to break into a larger area of consciousness. I've al-

ways wondered why allow themselves to be locked into specific and limiting

outlooks and perspectives.The trilogy, in fact, questions the validity of such

obsessive loyalties in the face of expanding consciousness and awareness

abou t psychologies and cultures the memories of women, men and societies in

order to reveal the hidden dangers of adopting a mightier-fightier-than-thou

cultural attitude.The plays also seek to explore new rituals and symb olic senses

of communication between peoples who come from different cultures, so as to

emphasise the common bonds and concerns that illuminate the large and often

bewildering impulse to be hum an.

Maniam, thankyou.

Flinders University of South Australia

23