The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970)
This article examines the representations of the modern Malay in Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957), which is set against the backdrop of historical events in British Malaya, including the Japanese Occupation. An important historical commentary on Malay life and modernising Malaya, the novel invites...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2022
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20953/1/53674-198295-1-PB.pdf |
| _version_ | 1796933344426983424 |
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| author | Mohamad Rashidi Mohd Pakri, Grace, V.S. Chin Afzal, Malik Haroon |
| author_facet | Mohamad Rashidi Mohd Pakri, Grace, V.S. Chin Afzal, Malik Haroon |
| author_sort | Mohamad Rashidi Mohd Pakri, |
| collection | UKM |
| description | This article examines the representations of the modern Malay in Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957), which is set against the backdrop of historical events in British Malaya, including the Japanese Occupation. An important historical commentary on Malay life and modernising Malaya, the novel invites us to revisit the ingrained scholarly views about colonial writers as well as the contemporary racial discourse about the Malay. Using a new historicist approach, this article has
a two-fold aim: first, to analyse how Malacca Boy engages the critical issues of race and modernity in its portrayal of Malay identity through the protagonist, Hassan; and second, to examine the relevance of Sim’s portrayal in relation to the contemporary political narrative of the Malay in Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970). Indeed, very little research has been done to consider how the trajectories of fiction and non-fiction intersect in the discussion of race and modernity, and therein lies the novelty and strength of our study. Although it is uncommon to compare literary fiction and non-fiction writing, we contend that such an unconventional approach
to literary analysis will yield important insights to the narration of Malaysian history, both in the colonial past and postcolonial present, and the place of the modern Malay in it. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T04:45:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | ukm.eprints-20953 |
| institution | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T04:45:48Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ukm.eprints-209532023-01-16T07:05:37Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20953/ The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) Mohamad Rashidi Mohd Pakri, Grace, V.S. Chin Afzal, Malik Haroon This article examines the representations of the modern Malay in Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957), which is set against the backdrop of historical events in British Malaya, including the Japanese Occupation. An important historical commentary on Malay life and modernising Malaya, the novel invites us to revisit the ingrained scholarly views about colonial writers as well as the contemporary racial discourse about the Malay. Using a new historicist approach, this article has a two-fold aim: first, to analyse how Malacca Boy engages the critical issues of race and modernity in its portrayal of Malay identity through the protagonist, Hassan; and second, to examine the relevance of Sim’s portrayal in relation to the contemporary political narrative of the Malay in Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970). Indeed, very little research has been done to consider how the trajectories of fiction and non-fiction intersect in the discussion of race and modernity, and therein lies the novelty and strength of our study. Although it is uncommon to compare literary fiction and non-fiction writing, we contend that such an unconventional approach to literary analysis will yield important insights to the narration of Malaysian history, both in the colonial past and postcolonial present, and the place of the modern Malay in it. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2022-11 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20953/1/53674-198295-1-PB.pdf Mohamad Rashidi Mohd Pakri, and Grace, V.S. Chin and Afzal, Malik Haroon (2022) The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970). GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 22 (4). pp. 279-294. ISSN 1675-8021 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1554 |
| spellingShingle | Mohamad Rashidi Mohd Pakri, Grace, V.S. Chin Afzal, Malik Haroon The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) |
| title | The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) |
| title_full | The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) |
| title_fullStr | The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) |
| title_full_unstemmed | The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) |
| title_short | The modern Malay : A comparative study of Katherine Sim’s Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970) |
| title_sort | modern malay a comparative study of katherine sim s malacca boy 1957 and mahathir mohamad s the malay dilemma 1970 |
| url | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/20953/1/53674-198295-1-PB.pdf |
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