MLIE – REFLECTION BY WAN MOHD FADHLI

For me Malaysian literature in English (MLIE) is not something new to me because I have already been exposed to it since I was in secondary school. Although only a few that I learned in secondary school but I still can remember the Malaysian famous writer like A. Samad said who wrote the poem ‘the crow’ and Muhammad Haji Salleh who wrote about ‘Si Tenggang Home Coming’. However, I suppose there are many Malaysian writers are not well known locally or internationally. This is maybe their works are written in their mother tongue and often were translated. I think I should know Malaysian writers better at the end of this course because their works are near to our heart as Malaysian. After being exposed a little bit about MLIE, I can consume that Malaysian writers use the same techniques to develop their ideas. The techniques here are not about their skills or ability but more on the cultural context and historical background of the prose and poetry. After I read all the notes given by Pn Lailatul “an overview of Malaysian literature in English “by Mohd A. Qayyum, I realize that my assumption is incorrect to signify the Malaysian writers in that way. If I am not in this course I might not know all about this and I want to know more about MLIE to support our Malaysian writers.
Further, I need to do more research to widen my knowledge about MLIE. The first I want to know is the status of MLIE. As the MLIE have started since 1920s I want to know more about the development of the short stories and poetry. I want to do more research and finding of the historical background of MLIE and about the writers development of his works. For the question what I learn about MLIE is through a task that has been given by Pn Lailatul about the writers work and as a group we must do a research about him. Because of this task, I can learn about the writer’s background which is for my group is doing on Salleh Ben Joned. From my point of view, Salleh is a fluent English writer because from my research on his background he spent several years in Australia as one of the last Colombo Plan Scholars. At the University of Tasmania, he became a student of a major Australian poet, James McCauley. He returned to Malaysia in 1973, so this leads him to write in English fluently. From the question how I learn about MLIE is through reading his works, do a research about the writers and discuss with the lecturer about the writers works and his background.
After I answer the entire question above I think that this is what we called self centered learning. I hope that in future I will have better understanding of MLIE from Pn Lailatul. From the article of “an overview of Malaysian literature in English “, I have learned how Qayyum defines the MLIE. Qayyum define the MLIE as corpus of “independent” local writings in the English language, characterized by local ideas about local experiences, or writing that hold up a mirror to the local reality. At the end, I understand more about MLIE and I have learned more beyond the MLIE itself. I hope that MLIE will have better future and prospect and keep on going until the end.