Silverfish - Writings

We wish we could sing that (20 years ago today, that is), but no ... we turned nine on the 25th of June. Yes, that's right. We are now into out tenth year. We let the milestone pass more in sober reflection rather than in celebration though. To be honest, we are still trying to wrap our heads around it.

What does nine years mean? That it has been a good fight and we are still around? Or, 'Oh my God, has it really been that long?' Or, is that all? Feels like we have been at it forever? Actually, it feels like all of that, at the same time.

We opened for business in Desa Sri Hartamas on the 25th of June 1999. At that time there were no mega bookstore in KL (MPH Mid-Valley only opened about nine month later). The scene was pretty bleak. There was, of course, Skoob Books -- the only bookstore that could provide us with the type of books we wanted then. The concept for Silverfish Books was pretty simple. We wanted a bookstore with the types of books we personally would want to read, with places to sit and browse through our selection without having to balance them precariously on tiny little horizontal surfaces available in between bookshelves, and possible have some coffee as we sorted them and decided which to buy. It was not based on any bookshop we knew (except maybe one in Melbourne we liked, that had played classical music at low volumes for ambience -- not muzak, not extra loud pasar malam 'One, Two, Three o'clock, Four o'clock, Lock'), it was just something we wanted. But, people have told us that Silverfish Books is like this or that bookshop in other parts of the world, and we'd go, "Oh?" (Two of the best compliments: a gentleman who came in for the first time said, "Oh, this is a real bookshop," and another said "This looks just like a bookshop in India." Wahhh!!! We were really flattered by the second comment. If you have ever been to a bookshop in India, you will understand.)

But book retail in KL is, of course, crazy. 'Dah-lah, we started in the middle of a recession, then mega stores started opening up all over like nobody's business, in a city where no one reads, with thousands upon thousands of imported books (while Singapore was going through a period of consolidation). This is a bizarre country.

We started publishing in 2001 with Silverfish New Writing 1. There was a real buzz around that one. We decided to make a go for it (against the advice 'publishing in Malaysia got no future-lah') in mid-September 2001, sent out the emails end-September requesting for submissions by end-October. We received 200 stories. Amir Muhammad volunteered to do the selection and editing, a whole host of people volunteered to proof it, to do the illustration, to design the cover and everything, and the book was out before Christmas. (There must be a record in there somewhere.) To date it is our favourite.

The rest, like they say, is history. To date we have published 29 titles of which 25 are still in print. Have we made a difference, a dent? We think so but, of course, we could be accused of being a little precious. It will be for others to decide. We have stopped doing the Silverfish New Writing series, as you know, but that's because we want to move-on to the next level. We want to focus on book-length prose from now on. (We already have six authors with previously unpublished books lined up, and they all live in the country.)

Then we have organised two International Literary Festivals -- in 2004 and in 2007 -- with writers from a dozen different countries. It was exciting, it was stressful, it was a little audacious, it was niggly, but ultimately, we have been told, it was fun. (Sometimes, we are too tired to notice).

So, how has the first nine years been? We have been flattered and flamed and called all sorts of names, but we guess, okay-lah. At least, we have not been ignored.

Book critics are getting all angsty again. Michael Saler writes in a The Times Literary Supplement story The rise of fan fiction and comic book culture explores the industry from 'book-burning and prohibition to Pulitzer Prizes and prestige'.

One of the lines in the report says: 'If culture is often war by other means, we are finally witnessing a truce in one longstanding conflict: that between so-called elite and mass cultures.' I suppose Silverfish Books would be compared to 'Japanese soldiers fighting the Second World War long after it ended'.

So are we, in Silverfish Books, snobs? I guess we are and will be perceived as such. But we are willing to live with that. I have nothing against genre fiction, really -- I was weaned on them -- but somehow find most of them not quite satisfying anymore, after having read a bit. I mean, it's a bit difficult having caramel coated popcorn for lunch (I could, when I was a kid) after you have tried banana leaf rice. But if you have never had anything but popcorn for lunch, I guess you will not miss anything.

Which brings us to the question: what industry are we in? Not food for sure.

Let's go back to basics -- which I do whenever I have an issue to deal with. Let us imagine living in caves fifty thousand years ago. The first need would be food. We would have got that from the nuts, fruits, roots, stems, seeds, leaves, and the occasional rabbit or squirrel or wild boar. Then we would need to reproduce; hence some wild sex. After this would come communication, or story telling. This would have been absolutely essential to keep us alive, especially good story telling. Can you imagine coming home after an encounter with a tiger and not telling everyone about it? Or, I mean, the difference between, "Oh, I saw a tiger on the way home," and, "There is a bloody tiger, big as a house, out there and it is eating people! I just escape being eaten!" said with the lots of dramatic and, appropriate, special effects to communicate the danger (although you actually saw the event from a safe distance from the top of the hill). Then, came entertainment.

Fast forward to the 21^st century. Food is aplenty, we fornicate ourselves silly and security is seldom an issue. So, what else is there? Entertainment. Never before in our entire history have people demanded so much entertainment every time, all the time. It is one long continuous bop till you drop fun-fest. Food is entertainment. Shopping is entertainment. Sex is entertainment. And dressing. And talking. And everything. Even colleges advertise as if their courses are all entertainment. We, fucking, blow our minds to find ways to entertain ourselves, maxing out at every bloody opportunity, which is all the time. Since the end of the Second World War, the most rapidly growing industry has been entertainment -- from the radio, to television to computers to everything. Remember the 90s anthem, Smells like Teen Spirit?

Here we are now, entertain us,
I feel stupid and contagious.

So, what industry is the book in? (Let's leave out the educational and academic books for the moment -- they are going to be taken over by the internet and e-readers soon, anyway.) Surprise! Entertainment. If in the past, storytelling has been part of entertainment, or entertainment has always had storytelling as a part of it, now storytelling is all entertainment. And books are about story telling. Books compete directly with music, movies, television, shopping malls, mamak shops and even telephone calls, it appears. Write it well and it will be read. Write it badly and people will not, no matter what the critics say. Storytelling is about communicating information, 'the tiger' in the case above and the danger associated with it.

So, Silverfish Books is an insufferably snobbish bookstore. We are only interested in books we (and our friends) like, and they generally tend to be good stories well told. We don't really bother too much about genre. Love in the Times of Cholera is a romance after all..

Times on line

Labels: Reading

We are all quite familiar with the Malaysian malaise -- from electric hibiscus (is that a nice name for a rock and roll band, or what?) and steel bunga mangga to instant nirvana and grotesquely fake Rococo furniture. (Jonathan Kent called this a-laugh-a-minute country. Another American couple thought we were simply bizarre.)

I was telling Anna that if I could invent a pill for writers -- you know like blue ones for prose, or pink for poetry, and so on -- I would be rich in no time. "No effort required, simply take one or two in the morning and two before retiring at night, and become a writer in no time, and claim your very own fifteen minutes of fame. For the Nobel Prize increase dosage to eight a day, but continuous usage may be required for at least six weeks. Maximum dosage: twelve a day. Proven side effects include stark raving madness, but that will qualify you to become a member of parliament." And while we are at it we could work on a pill for our footballers. "No training required. Take two in the morning and two at night for an Olympic medal. Guaranteed." Actually, I can think of pills for almost anything, though we probably have to beware of imitations. We are Malaysians after all. (I have absolutely no idea how we can possibly come up with a pill to cure our government officials of that dreaded electric hibiscus disease, though.)

You all have heard this before from this crabby uncle -- why are Malaysian's living overseas able to achieve so much more than those at home, be they writers or dancers or musicians or anything, why do we spend 3.5 million a month on a Philharmonic Orchestra comprising of (Mainly) foreigner mucisians for (mainly) foreigner audience, when that 42 million a year could be used to promote music education in a 1000 schools or build 100 mini KLPacs. (Can you imagine where the country would be now, in the ten years we have been wasting our time with The Malaysian Phil? God knows, I am not xenophobic.)

Anna, who has been in this country for 15 years, will be going to London for a bit before coming back. She hopes to do some work -- that is writing -- while she is there. She says she feels so lazy when she is here!

I was shocked.

"No, it's not so shocking. So many of my expatriate friends tell me the same thing. Being here makes them lazy," she said. "When they first come here, they like the sun so much, they spend all their time in the swimming pool. Then they get fed up, and try to look for other things, but there is nothing ... or they say there is nothing ... everything is so sensitive ... except shopping ..."

"Yes, yes, yes ... but why do you become lazy? Is it the weather, or is there something in the drinking water, or is it the air, or ..."

"I don't know ... except that when I am in London I will have plenty of time to write. When I was in Singapore, I used to help out in the National Museum like many other expatriate wives -- they gave us six months training -- but here they are not interested in us ... I had so much to do in Singapore."

I felt something there, because I remember a time when expatriates were quite active in the drama circles -- I mean in the production, acting, directing, music, lighting and so on. (We didn't learn all that living in a vacuum, you know.) Now, the only place we seem to find expatriates in are expensive coffee places, supermarkets or upmarket shopping malls. Still, Anna's answer was not entirely satisfactory.

"But that still does not explain why one becomes lazy when one comes here."

"Well, here everyone is satisfied with small things. If they go for pottery classes, they are happy if they can make a little pot for themselves. They are not interested in finding out more, in improving further, for excellence. There were many pottery classes before. Now, most of them are shut. When it comes to shopping they want the best, they don't mind spending twenty bucks on a cup of coffee, or a few hundred on a dress so they can look good. But they do nothing to improve themselves. They write a small story, they are happy. They make a small film, they are happy. Direct a bad play, and they are happy."

She went on and I kept trying to pull her back. "Yes, but what makes expatriates become like the locals?"

She tried to explain, but she couldn't put her finger on it, not to my satisfaction in any case. Anna has promised to write me an essay on the subject (which I shall post on this column as soon as I get it). But in the mean time one wonders what other expatriates out there think about this? And, are we really in serious danger of finding electric hibiscuses in Piccadilly Circus?

Labels: Others

The Kuala Lumpur Alternative Bookfest earlier this month was a nice experience. No, seriously. It was small, cozy, friendly and, most of all, I liked the buzz. There was no fear of it becoming another orgy of commercial bookselling -- it was not large enough to be noticed by the 'big boys'. With not a textbook in sight, not one workbook, not one management book, nor one 'teach-others-how-to-live-their-lives' book, it was a breath of fresh air. Most of the books were Malaysian, in Malay and in English, though there were some books from Indonesia and Singapore, which was good given the way our bookshops are overflowing with imported books. It was nice to see book social groups participating. There was also a 'free books' booth, a book charity, apart from indie and self publishers. (Silverfish Books paid for one of the tables that was used to sell books for charity, and supplied the books as well.)

Congratulations to the organisers. Hope you will do this regularly. I am sure there are other publishers who should have been there. Maya Press comes to mind. I understand the necessity to stop somewhere, or this could end up like any other fair. What is alternative? Alternative to what? Sometimes it is easier to define what we don't want, than what we want. I wouldn't want a book fair selling mainly school textbooks and workbooks like the recent KL International Book Fair, so that is one. That was easy. Secondly, it would be nice to be a place that featured only Malaysian books so we don’t get swamped with imported books. How about books from the other ASEAN countries, then? It is nice to have them around. No? Let us leave that out for the moment and stick to local books. Non-fiction books are fine but do I really want to go to a fair with tables full of books on management, self-help and recycled 'wisdom'? Ultimately, it is up to the organisers to decide. For me, I like the mix of the first KLAB -- eclectic but not high-brow, and fun.

I attended only one session, the one by Sisters In Islam on book censorship, Wacana on book banning. Pretty good turnout, I thought. On the panel were V. Gayathry (Centre for Independent Journalism), Astora Jabat (former Chief Editor of Al-Islam and columnist on Islamic affairs in Utusan Malaysia)
, Norhayati Kaprawi (Sisters In Islam) 
 and a phantom representative from Home Ministry. (He was not visible to anyone, nor did he say anything.) The debate went along pretty much predictable lines (we have all heard it before -- they went to the ministry, spoke to some furniture and came back disappointed, how dare that chair tell me what I should read!) but I liked Astora Jabat's presentation on censorship within Islam -- seemed pretty much about power. The poster and the postcard SIS organized for the event was nice.

So will the issue of book banning ever go away? I think not. We will probably have to wait for a gomen baru, lor.

Labels: Censorship, Others

I am not a great fan of book prizes. But then, I am not a great fan of prizes of any sort. (Huzir say that no one is, until they win one themselves.) However, when I received the following notice it caught my eye for some reason. It was not the prize money -- AUD$110,000 is nothing to scoff at. It seemed a bit more straight forward, unlike the circus act the Man Booker Asia turned out to be. (This could also become one, if they are not careful.)

Asia (for the Award) includes these countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (China), Macau (China), Tibet (China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor Leste (East Timor) and Vietnam. (West Asia still not included. Why?)
You can read the rules and get the entry forms here.
The closing date is 31^st May 2008. (The media statement is reproduced below.)

PREMIER;
MINISTERFOR CULTURE AND THE ARTS
JOINTMEDIA STATEMENT

16/4/08

Australia and Asia's richest literary award launched.

The richest literary award in Australia and Asia has been launched by Premier Alan Carpenter.

Mr Carpenter said the inaugural Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, worth $110,000, had the power to excite and expand the State's cultural horizons.

"This is a very exciting award that will re-ignite the importance and profile of literature in WA," Mr Carpenter said.

"A prize of this value will draw the best to WA and help fulfil our vision of providing new opportunities for Western Australians."

Culture and Arts Minister Sheila McHale said the award was part of the Carpenter Government's exciting $73million 'Ignite!' package, the biggest single State Government arts funding injection designed to transform literature, dance, theatre, music and visual arts.

"As part of our dynamic 'Ignite!' initiative, the literary award recognises the importance literature plays in our lives," Ms McHale said.

"WA is no longer a small player in the Australia-Asia region and the award will further expand cultural boundaries."

The Minister said the award is open to any book-length work of literary fiction published in print or electronically - something recognising the increasing predominance of electronic media, such as online and mobile phone formats.

The judging panel will consist of three renowned authors and literary experts drawn from some of the nominating countries. They include Pakistani born and multi-award winning author, Kamila Shamsie, author of 'Kartography' and 'Broken Verses' and Sri Lankan born, Hong Kong based columnist and founder of the 'Asia Literary Review', Nury Vittachi.

"This award is a fabulous vote of confidence which I know will kick-start a writing revolution," Mr Vittachi said.

"By embracing the area in which we live, and opening up this award outside Australia, we recognize the rich cultural heritage of Asia and the links our countries can create, on more than an economic basis."

The $110,000 prize makes the award the richest in the nation. Where the winning entry has been translated into English, the author will receive $88,000 and the translator $22,000.

The award is open to works written by an author resident in Australia or Asia, or which are primarily set in Australia or an Asian country. Works must have been either written in, or translated into English and published in the preceding year.

Entries for the award are now open and will close on May 31, 2008. Forms can be downloaded from the Department of Culture and the Arts website http://www.dca.wa.gov.au

Media contacts: Premier's office: Guy Houston 9222 9475 or 0411 742 692

Culture and the Arts Minister's office: Andrew Smith 9213 6900 or 0408 176 839

You can subscribe to have media releases emailed automatically from the Government's website: http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au

Labels: Others

Review of Latif Kamaluddin's Lazy Lamas and Voodoo Genitalia, Prayala, 2006

by

Guest Writer: Shankaran Nambiar

Latif Kamaluddin's Lazy Lamas and Voodoo Genitalia is an exciting and provocative collection of poems that attempts to tease and disturb the reader. With this volume, Kamaluddin effortlessly establishes himself as the most outstanding poet in Malaysia who attempts to explore the limits of language and the mystical edges of religion.

His "Cosmic Interview" raises the question of "why when and how/ did the individual/ self experience separation/ from the Universal Self". Only to be answered with a terse, "... if I know". This is followed by some blank space, framed by the line "END OF INTERVIEW." This poem is at once an exploration in religion in its most mystical sense, as well as a play of space and silence. Kamaluddin could have noted that the interview had ended immediately after the answer to the question was delivered, rather he chose to permit space to pervade between the answer and his declaration that the interview had ended. This serves only to highlight the silence that follows something for which no ready answer can be given. In this sense, Kamaluddin equates space (with no words) with silence.

This play of space as silence finds expression in an untitled poem of his where on one side of the page one finds the lines "god/must/be /liberated" juxtaposed against the lines "man/must/be/ re-created". Both of these lines, arranged as columns, are separated by a wide gap, or a breadth of space, that denotes the divide between man and God. Reading this poem, it is clear that Kamaluddin does more than seek to stress the unbridgeable gap between man and God. He also points out that God is a linguistic contraption of which we must be freed, and in so doing we take upon ourselves the task of liberating God from our preconceptions of Him, however we may conceive of Him. This process of "liberating god" or our linguistic understanding of God, Kamaluddin declares, results in man being re-created. But that, indeed, is a long process that in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions could take lifetimes of effort. It is an effort that needs great patience; and if we do not have the patience to wait without any demand, it could be akin to the feeling of constipation. And that explains why Kamaluddin rather irreverently announces at the close: "LET US ALL THEN GET CONSTIPATED."

We have come to be accustomed to waiting for actions that are result-oriented. Waiting in the spiritual sense is quite the opposite; it is a waiting that calls for the attitude "Thy will be done". Such waiting consequently implies waiting outside the boundaries of time. Kamaluddin’s concern with waiting of that nature comes to the fore again in his "Memogramme". He notes that "You are/dead now/and/I/ am unavailable/" and then goes on to ask, "so/where does/that leave/longing?" The context that he poses here is one where Nietzsche's God is dead and the seeker is unavailable. In a situation such as this what does longing mean, if one can at all long for the Divine under such circumstances? The irony that Kamaluddin hints at is mischievous when one notes that the title of this poem suggests the common memo that is circulated in offices, which requires results of a tangible form, not some longing that needs divine fervour. Again, a memo cannot function in the presence of the death of a person and the absence of another, a distinction that is absolutely at odds with a religious life.

Kamaluddin's untitled 'box' poem appears, at first sight, like word play. It seems to be the careful arrangement of words that takes the form of a square. The line on top reads, "every body has" and it turns down in clockwise direction to go on to "a box no one", leading on to "goes there", finally ending with "no one knows". If read in the natural sequence of a square, it would read: "every body has/a box no one/ goes there/ no one knows." One could, and is tempted to, read differently. Perhaps Kamaluddin is suggesting that everyone has a 'box', to which no one goes, and of which no one knows. If the reader were to take the trouble to develop the right metaphors, this poem can elicit tremendous insights; and in this sense he wants us to take a more intellectual posture towards his poems. Whatever it is that one takes a 'box' to suggest, at its core it is empty. And one cannot but fail to note that the "void" is a theme that recurs in his poetry in different ways, as the absence of person, as the death of God, as a concept that begs to be stripped of its linguistic trappings.

As can only be fitting for a collection of poems that is religious in a rebellious fashion and which invites linguistic de- and re-construction, Kamaluddin's last poem, entitled "Finalaudit", has just three lines, "going/ going/ gone". And these three words, which are so reminiscent of the Buddhist exhort to go beyond the temporal world, seem to be hiss reminder that urges us to go beyond the apparent as suggested by language and grammar.

In this volume Kamaluddin, perhaps, expresses concerns that should be central to one's life: to explore the foundation of time and space, to delve into solidity and embrace the void, to explore the interplay of word and silence; and more than anything else, to seek liberation from the strictures of language, grammar, form and sound. Kamaluddin in his slim and shocking volume, extends a formidable invitation to the reader.

(Silverfish Books will be giving away free copies of this book to anyone who comes to the bookshop and is interested -- please ask for one. Since we have only limited copies, it will have to be on a, strictly, first come first served basis. We will not take reservations or bookings.)

Labels: Reading

Edward Russell-Walling writes in Publishers Weekly, in a story called Every book counts that while '... the giants slug it out, huge tracts of territory are won or lost ... nipping between the tanks and the shell-bursts are nimble squads of guerrillas, partisans and secessionists -- the independents.' He is, of course, writing about the publishing industry, not the retail end. The latter is another story. (There too, the independents who after being clobbered for decades by the 800-pound gorillas are now resurgent in a small way. The fact is, the 'war of the worlds' scenario between the King Kongs is also taking its toll: Borders might be looking for a buyer and Barnes and Noble has been mentioned as the possible one -- though it lost money last quarter. Be ready on Ebay when the bidding starts. In the same breath, Waterstone's continues to reduce in size. What's going to happen to book retail in Malaysia? You guess.)

There are reports of bloodshed on the publishing front as well -- the 5.6% drop in sales and earnings of Random House last year -- but the story is not about that.

The story says that in UK the independents are those not one of the 'Big Four (Hachette, Random House, HarperCollins and Penguin) or the Not-Quite-So-Big Three (Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury and Simon & Schuster).' The Independent Publishers' Guild in the UK is said to have 460 members and a GBP 500 million turnover with the numbers increasing, with the cost of entry getting lower and lower. (Theoretically, anyone with a computer can become an independent publisher.)

The wonderful thing about being independent is that you can choose to publish anything you want -- they can be as exclusive and precious to the max, or as leze faire as they want and publish anything that will sell.

"The bigger you are, the more you're affected by the market. If you're small, you make your own success," Tim Hely Hutchinson, CEO of UK Hachette Livre UK is quoted as saying.

Big publishers have to spread there risks across the whole spectrum of the market. Ironically, in that process they avoid risks and stick to safe territory, publishing books on tried and tested subjects and authors. While independents can almost live, if not on fresh air and sunshine, on very low profits while they wait for one big-one to lift them out, large players need to be constantly on their toes, seeking to maximise profits not only for shareholders' returns but also to pay massive staff costs and other overheads. Not surprisingly, independents also have more fun.

Atlantic Books managing director Toby Mundy says: "It irritates (the big publishers) that most of the best publishing people are outside the conglomerate sector ..."

So are the more interesting books published by independents? Every year during the Booker silly season, commentators will take pains to point out the number of independents on the shortlist. Perhaps, there will come a time when we will be more surprised when major publishers get on the list.

Does it make a difference to the book buyer? The answer to this type of questions is always an irritating 'yes and no'. If, as a normal book buyer, I am looking for a particular author, or title, the answer is no. I would not care who the publisher is -- though the quality of production, cover design and price could decide which imprint I choose. Most book buyers will fall into this category. This is the 'sugared water' end of the industry which the big boys operate in. (And many independents, too.)

However, if as a book lover, I want to try something new, I would allow an imprint to influence me somewhat (unless something comes highly recommended.) These are some of my personal prejudices and knee-jerk reactions (possibly misinformed): Faber: hmmm ... I wonder what this is like ... sounds interesting. I will risk it. Ditto Cannongate, Harvill, Serpent’s Tail, Saki Books, and several others. Vintage and Picador ... mmm ... maybe. Harper Collins: rice and sugar merchants, not worth the bother unless it is for a specific author I am looking for. Penguin: good for classics, otherwise 'boring'. And so on. So, as a book lover, imprints do make a difference, though quite small.

How about as a bookstore owner? As a book buyer for Silverfish Books, all the prejudices above do apply. My buying is about 70% based on imprints and 30% on authors and titles. (For those who are not familiar with us, we don't stock best-sellers, self-help and management. So there.)

I have often wondered how much an author thinks of which imprint he (or she) would like to be published by. But I suspect that these are merely short-lived fantasies. I mean you might think how wonderful it would be to be published by Faber (for example). But reality has a way of putting an end to those type of dreams pretty quickly for most new writers. (The established authors, naturally, will have more choices.) You grab the one that makes you the best (or any) offer although, logically, an independent publisher specialising in a specific genre would be your best bet, for not only will they know how to present and develop you, they will give you a longer shelf life. The big boys will give you three months, if that, and if you don't make it in that period, you die. You're remaindered.

(I do not mention any of the Malaysian imprints for obvious reasons: self-preservation.)

Publisher's Weekly

Labels: Publishing