In the Mirror: New and Selected Poems of Wong Phui Nam
Autor Wong Phui Nam Editat de Daryl Lim Wei Jie, Brandon Liewen Limba Engleză Hardback – 13 oct 2025
Recomandăm volumul In the Mirror ca pe o resursă academică esențială pentru studiul literaturii post-coloniale din Asia de Sud-Est, fiind o piesă centrală pentru înțelegerea evoluției poeziei de limbă engleză în Malaezia. Considerăm că această ediție, publicată de National University of Singapore Press, este indispensabilă pentru cercetătorii și studenții care analizează modul în care limba colonială a fost reînsușită pentru a exprima realitățile unei societăți multietnice aflate în plină schimbare.
Din punct de vedere al conținutului, volumul este organizat riguros în două părți mari, urmărind progresia cronologică a operei lui Wong Phui Nam. Prima parte (1960-1989) surprinde începuturile sale cu „How the Hills are Distant” și criza de identitate din anii '70, în timp ce Partea a II-a (1990-2005) reflectă maturitatea stilistică și perspectivele critice asupra scrierii versurilor în engleză. Includerea eseurilor critice oferă o perspectivă rară asupra contextului politic malaezian din 1969, când politicile culturale naționale au forțat scriitorii anglofoni să își reevalueze poziția.
Comparabil cu Reading Malaysian Literature in English de Mohammad A. Quayum în rigurozitate, acest volum se distinge prin faptul că oferă acces direct la sursa primară, fiind actualizat pentru a include perspective critice contemporane semnate de Daryl Lim Wei Jie și Brandon Liew. În timp ce alte studii analizează fenomenul literar la nivel macro, In the Mirror permite o imersiune profundă în psihologia unui singur autor care a definit canonul. Structura sa, completată de un afterword semnat de pionierul literar Edwin Thumboo, transformă cartea dintr-o simplă antologie într-un instrument de referință pentru orice program de studii literare asiatice.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 9813252863
Pagini: 252
Ilustrații: 8 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.51 kg
Editura: Nus Press Pte Ltd
Colecția National University of Singapore Press
De ce să citești această carte
Această carte este o achiziție obligatorie pentru bibliotecile universitare și pentru specialiștii în literatură comparată. Cititorul câștigă o înțelegere profundă a tensiunii dintre identitatea națională și limba de expresie, explorând opera unui autor fundamental care a modelat peisajul literar malaezian. Este resursa definitivă pentru oricine dorește să studieze trauma culturală și reconstrucția identitară prin intermediul poeziei într-un context post-colonial complex.
Despre autor
Wong Phui Nam (1935-2022) a fost o figură centrală și un pionier al literaturii malaeziene de limbă engleză. Format la University of Malaya, a făcut parte dintr-o generație de intelectuali care au navigat tranziția dificilă de la colonialism la independență. Deși a avut o perioadă de tăcere literară autoimpusă după 1969, ca protest față de marginalizarea limbii engleze în Malaezia, el a revenit ulterior la scris, considerând engleza limba cea mai capabilă să exprime „vidul spiritual” lăsat de istorie. Opera sa, marcată de un ton melancolic și o precizie chirurgicală a limbajului, rămâne un pilon al modernismului poetic din Asia de Sud-Est.
Descriere scurtă
The poetry of Wong Phui Nam is foundational to Malaysian literature in English. While his early work is often cited in this regard, this edited collection of his poetry and critical essays makes it clear that his lifelong trajectory as a poet and critic is of deep interest. In the Mirror by Wong Phui Nam is a critical exploration of Malaysia's fractured post-colonial identity and literary landscapes.
Like many of his English-speaking peers at the University of Malaya, by the 1960s, Wong became disillusioned with the stark contradictions of writing in a colonial language while striving to build or maintain a national literary tradition. In 1969, when Malaysia's national cultural policy firmly emphasized the primacy of the Bahasa Malaysian language over English, Wong proclaimed, "I no longer wanted to write, at least not in a language I was told was a colonial leftover."
Over the years, however, he returned to poetry in English, often publishing privately. He came to believe that English was the language “most capable of representing our predicament,” given the spiritual and cultural vacuums left by colonialism's great ruptures in the region, and the ongoing neocolonial structure of the state and economy. His work challenges the reader to confront the realities of cultural displacement and the complexities of a multi-ethnic society grappling with its past and future.
This collection includes both recent works as well as some of his earlier achievements, starting with How the Hills are Distant, and also includes a foreword linking Wong's work with contemporary literary work in the region. An afterword by Wong's contemporary, Singaporean literary pioneer Edwin Thumboo, completes the volume.
Notă biografică
Cuprins
Part 1
1960-1964
Foreword to How the Hills are Distant
How the Hills are Distant
First Notes
Return to the Country
1965-1972
Getting to Speak without a Language
Candles for a Local Osiris
Osiris Transmogrified
1980-1989
Remembering Grandma
Fat Uncle Dying
Last Days in Hospital
Stepmother
Brother
For a Birthday
At the Door
Temple Caves
Mining Camp
Elsewhere than here
Imago
Spirit Rampant
Part II
1990-1995
A Night Easter
Out of the Stony Rubbish: A Personal Perspective on the Writing of
Verse in English in Malaysia
1996-2000
Against the Wilderness
Light Returns
Isis' Complaint
A God Drowns
Our Island Selves
Too Late with Reed or Strings
Moon Night
Snake in the Peacock Flower Tree
Kill Me! Kill Me!
Music for the Dying
At the Graveside
Anubis in Declension
Boars
Nataraja
Advent
Discontents of a Vanished Past
Earth Mother
A Fire Easter
A Poet Beyond the Far South
1992-2005
Reading a Tang Poem
In a Bronze Mirror
Twenty-Two Sonnets
Part III
2003-2019
A Heritage of fragments: An Interview with Wong Phui Nam
The Hidden Papyrus of Hen-Taui (2019)
Advice to Young Poets
In the Mirror: 2001-2022
Woman Dreamt in the Mirror
Into The Vale
Poete Maudite
Maudit
Bardo
Inland Sea
The Revenant
Immortality
Rebirth
The Somnambulant
Moth Man
Creatures
Soul Catchers
The God
Hanpa
After Us
Contagion
Visitant
Tok Seth
The Hangman
Birch
The Seychelles
Kellie's Folly
Ruminations at Dawn
At Eighty-Six
The Aspirant
Song
Afterword by Edwin Thumboo
Recenzii
“In The Mirror: New and Selected Poems of Wong Phui Nam is the perfect tribute to late poet Wong Phui Nam’s (1935-2022) legacy. Not only does it feature a selection of his poems, both previously published and published for the first time, it also includes a biography and several of his critical essays to help readers get a true sense of the man behind the pen. A must-read for lovers of Malaysian poetry.
“An intoxicating sense of place manifests in these earthly poems, often via deft lexical touches…. The potency of [Wong’s] imagery situates us within the tropics: the ribcage of a dead keeper, for instance, ‘agape for its trail of ants / and shocked by the morning’s fresh, devouring sun’. That Wong had a facility for producing English poetry that served his context well is one clear takeaway from this book…. [The] supplementary texts make clear why Wong is considered a totemic, and slightly tragic, figure within ‘a wasteland of Malaysian poets’, as coeditor Brandon K. Liew has put it… this book is full of shadowy mirror worlds, evocations of colonial history and, in the new poems he was apparently refining until the very end, self-elegy.”
“This volume of the late Mohamed Razali Wong Phui Nam’s (1935-2022) poetic and critical oeuvre invites a reinterpretation and re-evaluation of the pioneering Malay(si)an writer’s work…. Through their critical introduction and judicious editorial decisions, Liew and Lim portray Wong as both literary producer and critic, rather than simply establish a monumental or canonical collection of his work…. Wong exemplified what it meant to live as a writer amidst the fraught processes of nation-building and decolonisation.”