How Malaysian politics in real life affect our fiction

A file picture of the Reformasi street protests in Kuala Lumpur. This image from April 1999 has had a profound effect on the type of fiction that local authors are putting out now. Photo: The Star

Our focus on local literature draws to a close ahead of Merdeka Day on Aug 31 with a look at how events in the nation’s history affected the type of fiction being produced. Click the link for all the article in the series, Writing The Nation.

To celebrate Malaysia’s National Day this year in Reads, we have been exploring the somewhat sparse vegetation of English-language novels written by locally based authors and published between 1965 and 2014, to find out how they have contributed to the national discourse.