Post by anastasia on Nov 20, 2015 14:58:09 GMT 7
George Town Literary Festival 2015 @ Penang (27 - 29/11/15)
With almost 40 events and over 50 participants, the fifth annual George Town Literary Festival is about to descend on the beautiful and charming UNESCO World Heritage Site of George Town, Penang. The festival will run from the 27th to 29th of November.
In three weeks, we will welcome almost 40 writers and poets from Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the US, the UK, Chile, Canada, Germany, the Philippines and Malaysia. We are thrilled to have writers including Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Omar Musa, Jaap Blonk, Hanne Ørstavik, Wajahat Ali and our very own Marina Mahathir. Do look at our full writers and moderators list to see who’s going to be here.
This year we present our biggest and boldest festival yet!
We have book launches, workshops, a wayang kulit performance, panel discussions and readings, a poetry marathon, conversations, live music and so much more! Our theme this year ‘We Are Who We Are/Are We Who We Are?’ promises to be critical, provocative and engaging. Browse through our Festival Programme to get an idea of what we have in store.
This year, the festival takes place on Beach St and Armenian St - our festival village of sorts - where we will once again inhabit our beloved ChinaHouse and the new spaces at Black Kettle, The Space@216 Beach St, Cheah Kongsi and Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple on Armenian St.
Our festival bookstore Gerakbudaya Penang has been working hard to secure books from all our writers, so do come prepared for a mini bookfair!
We also have special events like a dinner with celebrated Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng, Pontianak - an all-female spoken word performance, a game called “Being Faust – Enter Mephisto” and a festival finale with a sneak preview of Interchange, the highly anticipated supernatural thriller from filmmaker Dain Iskandar Said.
As we believe in the diversity of the written word, we will have workshops in poetry, spoken word, translation and creating cartoons, all at a minimal cost.
Writers:
Wajahat Ali - Supported by U.S. Embassy
Wajahat Ali is a TV host, attorney and playwright. He is a journalist at Al Jazeera America. He helped launch the network as co-host of Al Jazeera America's The Stream, a daily news show that extended the conversation to social media and beyond. Ali is also the author of The Domestic Crusaders—the first major play about Muslim Americans, post-9/11. He is the lead author of the investigative report Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. Witty and emphatic, he speaks on the multifaceted Muslim American experience, and an emergent generation of millennials poised for social change.
Khairudin Aljunied - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Khairudin Aljunied is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. He has authored and edited several books which include Colonialism, Violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia (2009) and the newly published Radicals: Resistance and Protest in Colonial Malaya (2015). He is currently working on a book about Muslim cosmopolitan cultures in Southeast Asia.
Paul Augustin - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Paul Augustin was a musician for more than 15 years, recording compositions and producing three albums. He joined an events management company and then set up the Capricorn Connection – which focuses on festival organisation and management. He founded and has directed the Penang Island Jazz Festival since 2004. He is also a founder member of the Asian Jazz Festival Organisation and has been regularly invited to major jazz and music industry conferences across the world. He recently co-authored (with James Lochhead) the bestselling book, Just for the Love of It: Popular Music in Penang, 1930s–1960s (SIRD, 2015).
Jaap Blonk - Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Jaap Blonk is a Dutch composer and poet. His unfinished studies in mathematics and musicology mainly created a penchant for activities in a Dadaist vein, in the early 1980s he discovered the power and flexibility of his voice, and set out on a long-term research of phonetics and the possibilities of the human voice. At present, he has developed into a specialist in the creation and performance of sound poetry, supported by a powerful stage presence. He performs and gives workshops worldwide on a regular basis. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his work has acquired a considerable extension and from his sound poetry scores he developed an independent body of visual work, which has been published and exhibited worldwide.
Chuah Guat Eng
Chuah Guat Eng is a Malaysian fiction writer. Her literary publications include two novels, Echoes of Silence (1994, 2009) and Days of Change (2010), and three short-story collections, Tales from the Baram River (2001), The Old House (2008), and Dream Stuff (2014). She has a PhD from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for her thesis, From Conflict to Insight: A Zen-based Reading Procedure for the Analysis of Fiction.
Evan Fallenberg
Evan Fallenberg is the author of the novels Light Fell (Soho Press, 2008) and When We Danced on Water (HarperCollins, 2011) and a translator of Hebrew fiction, plays and libretti. He has won or been shortlisted for prizes that include an American Library Association Award, the Edmund White Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the PEN Translation Prize and the TLS Prize for Translation of Hebrew Literature. He teaches creative writing and literary translation at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv and City University of Hong Kong, and has been invited to residencies by the MacDowell Colony, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation/Chateau de Lavigny. Fallenberg serves as an advisor to the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and as a judge for the Galtelli Literary Prize, and is founder and artistic director of Arabesque: an Arts and Residency Center in Old Acre.
Lily Yulianti Farid - Supported by AirAsia
Lily Yulianti Farid is a short story writer, founder and director of the Makassar International Writers Festival in Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Her published story collections are: Makkunrai (2008), Maisaura (2008), Family Room (2010), Ayahmu Bulan Engkau Matahari (2011). She has participated at Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Winternachten Festival, The Hague; Word Storm Festival, Byron Bay Writers Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, Bendigo Writers Festival and the Salihara Biennale. She received her MA and PhD in gender studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She co-founded Rumata' Artspace in Makassar in 2010 and works as one of the executive directors.
Marco Ferrarese - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Marco Ferrarese has travelled extensively and lived in Italy, the United States, China, Australia and Malaysia. He started vagabonding as a punk rock guitarist with metal punk band The Nerds, hitting the most famous and infamous stages across Europe and North America. Since 2009 he has been based in Southeast Asia as a writer, hardcore punk musician and researcher. He has written about travel, culture and extreme music in Asia. Marco’s first pulp novel Nazi Goreng (2013) explores the underbelly of the Malaysian international drug trade and displaced youth and is a bestseller in Malaysia. It was recently translated into Bahasa Malaysia by DuBook Press (2015). His short stories were featured in anthologies KL Noir Blue and Lost in Putrajaya (2014). His latest book, Banana Punk Rawk Trails (2015), documents his forays into the world of Malaysian and Indonesian metal punk.
Judy Fong Bates - Supported by Canada Council for the Arts
Judy Fong Bates immigrated to Canada from China as a young child. She is the author of the critically acclaimed short-story collection, China Dog and Other Stories, and the novel, Midnight at the Dragon Café, which was an American Library Association Notable Book, and the Everybody Reads selection for Portland, Oregon, and Toronto, Canada. Her latest work, a family memoir, The Year of Finding Memory, was listed in ‘The 2010 Globe 100’ by the Globe and Mail. She is currently working on a novel. Judy has two adult daughters and three grandchildren and lives with her husband on a farm outside of Toronto.
Maureen Freely - Supported by the British Council
Maureen Freely is an author, a journalist, a translator, and the Head of the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. She is perhaps best known as the translator of five books the Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. More recently she has translated or co-translated works by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Sait Faik Abasıyanık, Sabahatin Ali, Fetiye Çetin, Hasan Ali Toptaş, Tuba Çandar, and Sema Kaygusuz. Her own seventh novel, Sailing through Byzantium, was named as one of the best novels of 2013 in both the TLS and the Sunday Times. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and formerly chair of the Translators Association, she is currently the President of English PEN.
Robin Hemley
Robin Hemley is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and former Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa. He is the author of 11 works of fiction and nonfiction and the winner of such awards as a Guggenheim Fellowship, A Bogliasco Fellowship, and three Pushcart prizes in fiction and nonfiction. He has been awarded residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the MacDowell Colony, Varuna Writers House, the Hermitage, and others. His work has appeared in such journals as The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Orion, and many of the finest literary magazines in the U.S. He is currently the Director of the Writing Program at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.
Joshua Ip
Joshua Ip is the Singapore Literature Prize-winning author of two volumes of poetry from Math Paper Press: making love with scrabble tiles (2013), and sonnets from the singlish (2012). He won the Golden Point Award for Prose in 2013, and was runner-up for Poetry in 2011. He has co-edited two poetry anthologies: A Luxury We Cannot Afford (2014) and SingPoWriMo 2014: The Anthology (2014). He is working on his first graphic novel, Ten Stories Below (2015). He organized the inaugural Singapore Poetry Writing Month in 2014, and the first Singapore Manuscript Bootcamp in 2015.
Pablo Jofré
Pablo Jofré has published Extranjería (Ediciones Bizarras, Ciudad de Guatemala 2015), Usted (Milena Berlin, 2013), Abecedario (Siníndice, Logroño 2012/Cuarto Propio, Santiago 2015) and in the anthology El tejedor en… Berlín by Ernesto Estrella and Jorge Locane (L.U.P.I., Sestao 2015). Together with musician Andi Meißner he leads the poetry-music duo Jofre Meissner Project. In June 2012 his poem The Light Age was included in the Bombing of Poems event (Casagrande-Southbank Center) over the Jubilee Garden in London. In 2010, he won the first prize at the Sant Andreu de la Barca Competition (in Spain), for his poem La Danza De La Existencia and in 2009, he was awarded an Honourable Mention in the Chilean National Contest of Literature Gabriela Mistral for his book Abecedario. He studies literature, anthropology and journalism in Chilean and Spanish universities, and lives and works as cultural reporter and literary translator in Berlin.
Khoo Salma - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Khoo Salma is a Penang-based writer, publisher and heritage advocate. She is currently president of Penang Heritage Trust and custodian of the Sun Yat Sen Museum, Penang, at 120 Armenian Street. As co-founder of the Little Penang Street Market through Lestari Heritage Network, she has been involved in growing Penang’s creative economy. She has written or co-written more than a dozen books on Penang and Perak – on social history, cultural heritage and sustainable development – including Penang Postcard Collection, 1899–1930s (2003), More than Merchants: A History of the German-Speaking Community in Penang, 1800s–1940s (2006), Sun Yat Sen in Penang (2008), Heritage Houses of Penang (2009) and the award-winning The Chulia in Penang: Patronage and Place-Making around the Kapitan Kling Mosque, 1786–1957 (2014).
Lim Swee Tin
Lim Swee Tin was born in Bachok, Kelantan. He began writing in the early 1970’s and published his first collection of poems Eva in 1981. Lim has won many literary awards which include the ‘1983 Puisiputra 2 Award’ for his collection of poems entitled Akrab (1985), the 1982/83, 1984/85, 1988/89 Hadiah Sastera Malaysia (Malaysia Literary Award) and the SEA Write Award in 2000. Among his collections of poems are A Child and the Other Poems (1993), Sebuah Fregmen Cinta (1998, 2000), Citra Kurnia (2004), Memetik Mawar (2005), Sukma Cemara (2006), Potret Harum Kuntum Zaitun (2006), Cakerawala Kemerdekaan (2007), Eva Masih untuk Sebuah Nama (2008), Mencari Indah (2008), and Stanza Memmorabilia (2009), Embun Sejuta Mawar (2015). He currently lectures in Malay Literature at University Putra Malaysia.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim - Due to unforeseen circumstances, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim will not be participating
Shirley Geok-lin LIM is a Malaysian-born, US-based writer and poet who has written seven poetry (Crossing the Peninsula won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, first for a woman and Asian) and three short story collections, three novels, The Shirley Lim Collection, and Among the White Moon Faces (American Book Award memoir winner). Malacca-born, she has also published critical studies and numerous anthologies (The Forbidden Stitch was a 1990 American Book Award winner) is a Fulbright and Wien International Fellow and completed her Ph.D. at Brandeis University. Recipient of the MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award and UCSB Faculty Research Lecture Award, Ngee Ann Kongsi Distinguished Professorship (NUS), she served as Chair Professor of English at University of Hong Kong. She is launching three new poetry collections in 2015: The Irreversible Sun (West End Press); Do You Live In? and Ars Poetic for the Day (Ethos).
Marina Mahathir
Marina Mahathir is a newspaper columnist, human rights activist, TV producer and founder of a women's travel website, Zafigo.com. Her activism began with 12 years as President of the Malaysian AIDS Council, and currently as a member of the Board of Sisters in Islam. She travels frequently to speak at conferences and corporate events, locally and abroad. Since 1989, she has written a bi-weekly column called Musings in The Star newspaper and has had her pieces published in 50 days: Rantings by MM (2009) and Telling It Straight (2012).
Anthony Milner - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Anthony Milner is the Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia; Adjunct Professor at the University of Malaya; and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He has been one of the leading historians of Malaysia over the past thirty years and a pioneer in the history of ideas. He is the author of Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (1982), The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya (1995, 2002) and The Malays (2008, 2012).
Amir Muhammad
Amir Muhammad is a writer, publisher and occasional filmmaker from Malaysia. Two of his documentaries have been banned. His publishing company Fixi was established in 2011 and has to date published 115 titles. Fixi won the coveted International Adult Trade Publisher Award at the London Book Fair 2014.
Dipika Mukherjee - Supported by Fixi
Dipika Mukherjee is a writer and sociolinguist. Her debut novel, Thunder Demons (Gyaana 2011), was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize; it is being republished (Repeater, UK) and distributed by Penguin/Random House worldwide in Summer 2016. She also won the 2014 Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence and the Platform Flash Fiction competition in April 2009. She has edited two anthologies of Southeast Asian short stories: Silverfish New Writing 6 (2006) and The Merlion and Hibiscus (2002) and her first poetry chapbook, The Palimpsest of Exile, was published by Rubicon Press (Canada) in 2009. Her writing appears in publications around the world including Asia Literary Review, World Literature Today, Rhino, Chicago Quarterly Review, Postcolonial Text and South Asian Review. She is a Contributing Editor for Jaggery (A Southasian Diasporic Arts and Literature Journal) and curates an Asian/American Reading Series for the Literary Guild, Chicago.
Omar Musa - Supported by AirAsia
Omar Musa is a Malaysian-Australian author, rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He is the former winner of the Australian Poetry Slam and the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam. He has released three hip hop albums, two poetry books (including Parang), appeared on ABC's Q&A and received a standing ovation at TEDx Sydney at the Sydney Opera House. He has toured his poetry and music extensively internationally, in Asia, the USA, Europe, South America and Australia. His debut novel Here Come the Dogs was published by Penguin Australia in 2014. Here Come the Dogs was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award and he was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015. Here Come the Dogs comes out in the USA through The New Press in January 2016. He is currently working on a new album and a novel that is set in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Ooi Kee Beng - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Ooi Kee Beng is the Deputy Director of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute (formerly the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), Singapore. He is a prolific writer and observer of the Malaysian scene. He writes for The Edge Weekly and is the founding-editor of ISEAS Perspective, ISEAS Monitor and Penang Monthly. His major books include the award-winning The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time (2006); The Eurasian Core and Its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (2015); Lim Kit Siang: Defying the Odds (2015); Merdeka for the Mind: Essays on Malaysian Struggles in the 21st Century (2015); In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee (2010); Continent, Coast, Ocean: Dynamics of Regionalism in Eastern Asia (2008); and Lost in Transition: Malaysia under Abdullah (2008). He has translated several classical Chinese war manuals into Swedish and English.
Hanne Ørstavik - Supported by Forlaget Oktober & Mimir Sdn Bhd
With the publication of the novel Cut (Hakk) in 1994, Hanne Ørstavik embarked on a career that would make her one of the most remarkable and admired authors in Norwegian contemporary literature. Her literary breakthrough came three years later with the publication of Love (Kjærlighet), which in 2006 was voted the 6th best Norwegian book of the last 25 years in a prestigious contest in Dagbladet. Since then she has written 14 acclaimed and much discussed novels and received a host of literary prizes which include the Dobloug Prize (2002) and the Brage Prize (2004) for her novel Presten. In 2008, Oktober publishing house published the anthology Openings, containing essays on Ørstavik’s books written by Nordic literary critics and academics. Her work has been translated into 18 languages.
Anne Provoost - Supported by the Embassy of Belgium
Belgian writer Anne Provoost is the author of a series of provocative novels that examine topics as varied as right-wing extremism, sexual abuse, and religion through the eyes of young protagonists. One of her novels was made into an English-language feature film. She is a member of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature and a member of PEN. Her work has been translated into 20 different languages.
Danton Remoto - Supported by the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus
Danton Remoto studied at universities in the Philippines, the UK and the USA. He has published 12 books in English and Filipino and have been published in the UK, US, Spain, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Japan. He is a popular TV and radio presenter in the Philippines as well as a Professorial Lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University.
Kate Rogers’
Kate Rogers’ new poetry collection, Foreign Skin, debuts in Toronto with Aeolus House Press in July 2015 and in Hong Kong in October this year. Kate’s poetry about the Hong Kong protests last year have appeared in The Guardian and the Asia Literary Review. Other recent publication credits include the Kyoto Journal; ASIATIC: the Journal of English Language and Literature at the Islamic University of Malaysia; Contemporary Verse II; Orbis International; and Many Mountains Moving. Previous books are City of Stairs (2012) and Painting the Borrowed House (2008), both of which received publication grants from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Kate is co-editor of the OutLoud Too anthology (2014) and co-editor of Not A Muse: the inner lives of women (2009).
Robin Ruizendaal - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Robin Ruizendaal is the director of the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Theatre Museum and artistic director of the Taiyuan Puppet Theatre Company in Taipei, Taiwan. He holds a PhD in Sinology from Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has written and directed more than 20 modern and traditional Taiwanese theatre productions that have been performed in over 30 countries around the world, including Malaysia. He has done field research on most Asian puppet theatre traditions and curated numerous puppet theatre exhibitions around the world, and is the author of Asian Theatre Puppets (Thames & Hudson, 2009). He is cultural adviser to the Taipei city government.
Dain Iskandar Said - Supported by Apparat
Dain Iskandar Said has worked with images for almost 30 years, concentrating on feature films, documentaries and video installations. His work has been showcased at the Sydney Biennale and the Burj Al Arab. His last film Bunohan won international acclaim. He is currently finishing his film ‘Interchange’, to be released in 2016.
Tan Sooi Beng - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Tan Sooi Beng is professor of ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia. She is the author of Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993), and co-author of Music of Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (Ashgate, 2004) and Longing for the Past: The 78 RPM Era in Southeast Asia (Dust to Digital, 2013). She is the musical director and composer for youth theatre community productions such as Kisah Pulau Pinang (2006), Ronggeng Merdeka (2007), Kotai Penang (2008), Opera Pasar (2010), Ceritera Taman Botanik (2011) and George Town Heboh: Streets Alive (2012) and Wayang Time (2015). Her gamelan composition Perubahan has been recorded in the CD Rhythm in Bronze (Five Arts Centre, 2001).
Tan Twan Eng
Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang, Malaysia. His debut novel, The Gift of Rain, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Man Asian Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and was also shortlisted for the IMPAC-Dublin Prize. He is currently working on his third novel.
Franca Treur - Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Franca Treur is a Dutch novelist who has been nominated for a range of literary awards and won the 2010 Selexyz Debut Prize for her bestselling novel Dorsvloer vol confetti (Confetti on the Threshing Floor). The novel was released as a feature-length and prize winning film in 2014 called ‘Confetti Harvest’. Her second novel, De woongroep (The Roommates), was published in 2014. She is a regular contributor of stories, columns and essays to national newspapers and journals which include NRC Handelsblad, deVolkskrant, Groene Amsterdammer, Vrij Nederland, radio 1 and Vogue. Her collection of short stories Ik zou maar nergens op rekenen (I shouldn’t wager on anything) is forthcoming. She lives in Amsterdam.
Mark Trowell
Mark Trowell is a leading Australian criminal lawyer and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2000. He has prosecuted criminal cases for the Director of Public Prosecutions and has also appeared as counsel at two Royal Commissions. He is co-chair of the criminal law standing committee of LAWASIA. He has also represented the interests of the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union at the sedition trial of the late Karpal Singh; the criminal trials and appeals of opposition leaders Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia and Sarath Fonseka in Sri Lanka. In 2013 he was an observer at the treason trials of several members of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (commonly known as the Red Shirts) in Thailand. He has published Sodomy II: The Trial of Anwar Ibrahim (Marshall Cavendish, 2012) and The Prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim: The Final Play (Marshall Cavendish, 2015).
Anja Utler - Supported by the Goethe-Institute
Anja Utler was born in Schwandorf, Germany in 1973, and currently shuttles between Vienna, where she teaches poetry at the University of Applied Arts, and Regensburg, where she is involved in a research project on the perception of spoken poetry. Her poetry collection münden – entzüngeln won the coveted Leonce-und-Lena-Preis for Poetry in 2003. For her innovative poetic exploration of political issues such as ecology in her latest book ausgeübt. Eine Kurskorrektur, she was awarded with the Basler Lyrikpreis (Basel Poetry Prize) in 2014. Utler's works explore the impact of different media and modes of perception on the experience of a text: her works brinnen (2006) and jana, vermacht (2009) were both published in print and audio formats; jana, vermacht was also transformed into an installation for an exhibition in 2014. Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Xu Xi - Supported by City University of Hong Kong
Xu Xi is author of nine books of fiction & essays. Recent titles are Access: Thirteen Tales and the novel Habit of a Foreign Sky, a finalist for the Man Asian Literary Prize. She is also editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English, most recently The Queen of Statue Square: New Hong Kong Short Fiction. For eighteen years, she had a parallel career in marketing for multinationals in Asia and the U.S. Currently, she is writer-in-residence at City University of Hong Kong where she established and directs Asia’s first low-residency MFA in creative writing. A Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, she lives between New York and Hong Kong.
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is a poet and essayist from Cebu, Philippines. He has received an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, USA. His work has received awards from the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Phiilippines Free Press and the Carlos Palanca Awards. His first book of poems The Highest Hiding Place received the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award.
Zunar (Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaque)
Zunar (Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaque) is a political cartoonist from Malaysia. With the slogan, "How Can I be Neutral, Even My Pen Has a Stand", he exposes corruption and abuse of power committed by the government of Malaysia through his art. Zunar is now facing nine charges under the Sedition Act and facing possible 43 years imprisonment if he is sentenced and charged in a court proceeding due to start in September 2015. Five of his books have been banned by the Malaysian government on the grounds that the contents are "detrimental to public order." He was awarded the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award 2011 by Cartoonists Rights Network International and the Human Rights Watch Hellman/Hammett Award for 2011 & 2015.
Writers: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=456
Moderators
Umapagan Ampikaipakan
Umapagan Ampikaipakan is a media moll. You can find him almost everywhere - from newsprint to the world-wide-web, from radio to television - where he contemplates everything from the idiosyncrasies of Malaysian politics to his unnatural obsession with the written word. Blessed with a critic’s pen and a reader’s enthusiasm, Uma, is one of Malaysia’s foremost literary voices. His long running radio show, Bookmark on BFM89.9, is Malaysia's pre-eminent broadcast on all things book related. He is also a film critic with At the Movies, a pop-culture columnist for #edGY, and the co-host of BFM89.9's drive time radio show, The Evening Edition. He also runs The Cooler Lumpur Festival, KL's annual gathering of literary minds, thought leaders and Asia’s first and only festival of ideas.
Sharon Bakar
Sharon Bakar was born in Britain but has lived and worked in Malaysia for more than 30 years. A teacher-trainer by profession, she now teaches creative writing in partnership with various organisations. Her articles, reviews, and short fiction have appeared in a number of Malaysian publications. She is the editor of an anthology of short fiction, Collateral Damage, published by Silverfish Books, and is the co-editor (along with Bernice Chauly) of the Readings From Readings series which has grown out of Kuala Lumpur’s longest running literary event, Readings@Seksan, started by Bernice Chauly in 2005.
Latif Kamaluddin
Latif Kamaluddin is a former professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia and currently a freelance researcher. He spent almost 20 years doing street work with transgendered communities, developmental work with the visually impaired, urban poor and abused children. He has six poetry anthologies to his credit and currently working on two more. Latif has travelled extensively, having trained in Germany, Scotland, Sweden and Australia. He is also an experienced holistic nutritional counselor and practitioner of Surat Shabd Yoga (Yoga of Sound and Light).
Eddin Khoo
Eddin Khoo a poet, writer, translator and journalist. Following a tenure as an arts and culture journalist with the Sunday Star, Malaysia’s leading English language weekly, he founded the cultural centre PUSAKA. He has worked intimately with some of Malaysia’s leading traditional artists including shadow puppeteers, musicians, dramatists and dancers. He has focused principally on the state of Kelantan, researching aspects of oral transmission, cultural and religious politics and aspects of ritual in traditional theatre. Among his publications is a book of selected writings by the Malaysian artist and critic Ismail Zain, Intermediations: Selected Writings on Art, and a translation of poems into Malay, Sajak-Sajak by the American poet Christopher Merrill. He collaborated with Ibrahim Hussein to complete the acclaimed Malaysian artist’s autobiography, titled Ib: A Life.
Sharaad Kuttan
Sharaad Kuttan has a MA in Sociology from the National University of Singapore. He co-edited a collection of essays on Singapore, titled Looking At Culture in the early 1990s. He is also a member of the Singapore branch of the International Art Critics Association. As part of his contributions to the human rights agenda in Malaysia he co-founded the Centre for Independent Journalism and ran the short-lived Radiq Radio initiative. He has a chapter on civil society action in the struggle for electoral reform in the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia publication, Elections and Democracy in Malaysia. He is currently a producer with the radio station, BFM89.9 in the Klang valley.
Jasmine Low
Jasmine Low has actively promoted the arts, independent music and spoken word community events since 2002. A big part of her contribution to the arts community in the Klang Valley include curating and organising a series of music and spoken word events titled Valhalla Open Mic, Doppelganger Open Mic Open Stage and Wayang Kata. She has presented her ideas on sound frequencies at TEDxMMU. Jasmine is also co-founder of a creative marketing agency GoInternationalGroup.com and social enterprise startup Doppelmyfund.com.
Dhanendran Maheswaran
Dhanendran Maheswaran or Ksatriya, is driven by this powerful statement - “Be kind, be brave, speak truth”. He is a storyteller, poet and performer who explores the themes of identity, marginalization and social justice through music and poetry. He runs “Say It Like You Mean It” (SILYMI), a mentorship program for young artists and is the current Chair for the Penang Arts Industries Roundtable, an independent initiative to map the Penang arts landscape and discuss development pathways.
Ahmad Fuad Rahmat
Ahmad Fuad Rahmat is currently doing his PhD in cultural studies at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. He is also the editor-in-chief for ProjekDialog.com and co-hosts Night School on BFM Radio with Sharaad Kuttan.
Gareth Richards
Gareth Richards is a former academic who taught politics at the University of Manchester and Universiti Malaya. He is the founder-director of Impress Creative & Editorial, a small and innovative company involved in diverse areas of the arts and book production, notably consultant editing and translation. In May 2014 he set up Gerakbudaya Bookshop, Penang, the first independent bookshop in the UNESCO World Heritage site of George Town. He is the co-author/editor of Asia–Europe Interregionalism: Critical Perspectives (1999) and wrote the texts for Portraits of Penang: Little India (2011).
Azmi Sharom
Azmi Sharom is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya, where he teaches environmental law and human rights Law. His latest academic publications are as chief editor of Human Rights and Peace in Southeast Asia Series 2: Defying the Impasse, and Human Rights and Peace in Southeast Asia Series 2: Amplifying the Voices (Southeast Asian Human Rights Studies Network, 2013). He writes fortnightly columns on current affairs for The Star and Sin Chew Jit Poh. A selection of his journalistic writing was published as Brave New World (SIRD, 2015) this year.
Shivani Sivagurunathan
Shivani Sivagurunathan writes short fiction and poetry. Her collection of short stories, Wildlife on Coal Island, came out in 2011 and was republished by Harper Collins India in 2012. She lectures in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. She is currently working on a new collection of short stories.
Michael Vatikiotis
Michael Vatikiotis works on promoting dialogue and conflict resolution in Southeast Asia. Formerly editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, Vatikiotis has been a writer and journalist in Asia for 27 years. He has lived in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong and has written two books on regional politics. His published fiction includes The Spice Garden, a novel on religious conflict in Eastern Indonesia and The Painter of Lost Souls. He is a regular contributor to a number of regional newspapers. Vatikiotis is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London has a PhD from Oxford University and an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland.
Malachi Edwin Vethamani
Malachi Edwin Vethamani is Professor of Modern English Literature, School of English, at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His most recent publication is A Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English (Maya Press). He has a monthly column entitled English Language Matters in the New Sunday Times, a national Malaysian newspaper.
Yin Shao Loong
Yin Shao Loong has served as policy advisor to the Selangor State Executive Councillor for Environment, Tourism, and Consumer Affairs. He was formerly a Research Officer at the Third World Network with extensive experience in treaty processes at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD). A columnist at The Malaysian Insider and the Selangor Times, he edited Malaysian Environment in Crisis (2004) and New Malaysian Essays: Vol. 3 (2010). In 2012 he delivered several public lectures on the history of ideas of race. He is currently the Executive Director of Institut Rakyat, a progressive think tank based in Kuala Lumpur.
Moderators: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=459
Performers
Mia Palencia
Mia Palencia launched her luminous career as the other half of well-loved Sabahan jazz duo Double Take with Roger Wang when she was just 16 years old. In 2007, she began writing and producing original music and has released three solo albums and toured in Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia. In 2010, she was offered a full scholarship to study Songwriting at the University of Tasmania. Her research, which involved analysing traditional Sabahan music and incorporating it into contemporary composition led her to compose original music for Malaysia’s longest-running musical, “Mud: Our Story of KL.” Her soon-to-be released seventh album featuring her Australian quartet, In Good Company was recorded with prolific Australian jazz producer Mal Stanley at ABC Studios, Melbourne.
Pontianak - Spoken Word
Women have been accused of being witches, for practicing witchcraft since the beginning of time. But in pre-historical societies, women grew herbs, developed medicines, healed the sick, kept the land fertile, all the while connected to spiritual life through prayer and ceremony. They were seen as priestesses, doctors. These women held the knowledge to society's physical and spiritual heath. The tides turned and these prayers and blessings were later accused of being spells and magic, and women were killed for ‘practicing’ such 'dark arts', chased out of, even banned from their traditional roles, their knowledge stolen from them. Pontianak explores the way women and ‘the feminine’ have been systematically demonized, their stories buried, their collective and individual power taken away from them, their role in society demeaned and diminished and their natural, universal status as goddesses removed, through traditional patriarchal narratives told as myth and legend. Drawing from the ghost stories and folklore that permeated our childhood nightmares and imagination, Pontianak is a re-imagining of the witch and of the feminine told through the spoken word poetry of five different women contemporary poets.
Performers:
Sheena Baharudin
Sheena Baharudin is a spoken word artist, writer, curator of the multidisciplinary performing arts event Numinous, published poet and educator. She has performed her works at various events including Melaka Arts Festival, Urbanscapes, Incitement, the George Town Literary Festival and Lit Up Fest in Singapore. Her first collection of poems, Rhymes for Mending Hearts, was published in 2013. She is currently working on her second book of poems.
Melizarani T.Selva
Melizarani T.Selva is a spoken word poet, writer and entrepreneur. Her rhymes are drawn from her infatuation with food, a wild curiosity in taboos and all the things her Mother told her not to do. She has performed her poetry at various literary events in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne including Readings@Seksan and gained first runner up at The National Singapore Slam, Lit Up 2013. Her first book of poems Taboo was recently published.
Elaine Foster
Elaine Foster is a writer, performer, poetry educator and activist. Founder of The Big Fish – a storytelling event for big kids, Elaine performs her poetry solo and in ensemble and has performed at #Word - The Cooler Lumpur Festival, Urbanscapes, the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, the George Town Literary Festival, kakiseni fest, the KLPAC Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe Fest with PBH's Other Voices Cabaret.
Illya Sumanto
Illya Sumanto is a spoken word artiste, director for children’s theater, event organizer, and part-time TV host, of which her current project is Giler Selamba Jane. She was part of SERONOK, a multinational Indonesia-Malaysia-US-UK poetry-art-technology collaboration that performed in KL, Jakarta and the Ubud’s Writers & Readers Festival.
Nabila Najwa
Nabila Najwa is a writer of poetry and prose published in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the United States. She has a profound interest in the underground DIY scene including the publication of independent zines. This is her first time collaborating in an ensemble performance to a live audience.
Reza Salleh
Reza Salleh is a central figure in Malaysia's thriving singer-songwriter circuit and is often seen in an intimate, solo acoustic format or backed by a tight, dynamic full-piece band. He calls his music “a little bit of everything”, drawing from pop, grunge, R&B and folk. A winner and five-time nominee at Anugerah Industri Music 2011, Reza was also the first independent singer-songwriter to be invited to do a full showcase at the Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS. He has performed in Australia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and Japan. He was the first Malaysian to be invited to play at Japan's 19th Annual Sunset Live Festival in Fukuoka, Japan (2011) and invited to play the Asia Music Found showcase and the Nakasu Jazz Festival in 2014 and 2015.
Wayang Kulit Sri Warisan Pusaka
PUSAKA is proud to present, as part of the George Town Literary Festival, Kumpulan Wayang Kulit Sri Warisan Pusaka from Machang, Kelantan. The group is led by Abdul Rahman Dollah (Dalang Nawi) and Mohamad Hassan Noor. They are both diciples of the late great Tok Dalang Abdullah Ibrahim, famously known as Tok Dalang Dollah Baju Merah. The group has performed to great acclaim both nationally and internationally, and just recently completed a US residency with CaravanSerai in a month long tour of 6 cities around the mid-west in Spring 2015.
Zalila Lee
Zalila Lee bares her soul through shaded-headgear and intimately strung words. With her gritty vocals, she sings with an emotional dynamism, coupled with an intense conviction on guitar through a crossbreed of plucking, strumming, and palm thumping. Her recently released album, Shadows, displays her musical influences from folk and blues, with her own distinct rhythms and lyricism. Active in the Malaysian music scene for the past decade as a percussionist and back-up vocalist, she has worked on records with artists like Shelley Leong, Az Samad, and Bihzhu, as well as live shows with Paladin, Froya, and Elvira Arul. As she has been so much part of other artists stories, it’s now time to tell her story at the GTLF.
Performers: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=462
Happening Simultaneously: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=465
Programme:
Friday, 27th November, 2015
10.30am - 12.00pm, Writing Workshop : Shirley Lim – Poetry
Inside Out: From Imagination to Craft to Poem (CANCEL) Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
1.00pm - 2.30pm, Writing Workshop : Omar Musa – Spoken Word Poetry
How to Bring a Poem to Life, Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
3.00pm - 4.00pm, Voices : Woman is I Personal monologues from Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC), Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
4.00pm - 5.00pm, Book Launch – Mark Trowell, The Prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim: The Final Play (Marshall Cavendish), Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.00pm - 7.30pm, Opening Ceremony with YAB Lim Guan Eng, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
8.00pm - 9.00pm, Wayang Kulit Seri Warisan Pusaka, Venue: Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple
9.30pm - 12.00am, Music at The Canteen – Mia Palencia, Venue: China House, The Canteen
Saturday, 28th November, 2015
9.30am - 10.30am, Cartooning as an Art of Protest, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
10.00 am - 11.00am, Reading and Panel Discussion: The Other Side of Silence, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
10.00am - 11.00am, Reading and Panel Discussion: The Play’s the Thing, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
10.30am - 12.00pm, Writing Workshop : Maureen Freely – What is Literary Translation?, Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
11.15am - 12.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: The State of the Nation, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
11.15am - 1215pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: The Malay Dilemma, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
12.30pm - 1.45pm, Poetry at Lunch: Poetry Marathon, Venue: China House, The Canteen
2.00pm - 3.00pm, Conversations:Wajahat Ali and Marina Mahathir – Who Is Entitled?, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
2.00pm - 3.00pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Fear, Guns and Amerika.Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
3.15pm - 4.15pm, Conversations:Maureen Freely and Anja Utler – Can The Subterranean Speak?, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
3.15pm - 4.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Futile States, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
5.00pm - 5.45pm, Book Launch –Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English (Maya Press) by Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.00pm - 6.30pm, Book Launch – Rules of Desire (Fixi Novo) by Dipika Mukherjee, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.30pm - 10.00pm, Dinner & Conversation with Tan Twan Eng, Venue: The Blue Mansion
6.30pm - 7.15pm, And the winners for the D.K Dutt Memorial Award are…, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
7.00pm - 8.00pm, Aku Mahu Hidup Seribu Tahun Lagi – the poetry of Chairil Anwar, Venue: China House,Vic's
7.30pm - 11.59pm, Two Book Launches and Live Music!, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
9.30pm - 12.00am, Music at The Canteen – Reza Salleh, Venue: China House, The Canteen
10.30pm - 11.59pm, Spoken Word Event – Pontianak., Venue: Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple
Sunday, 29th November, 2015
10.00am - 11.00am, Conversations: Judy Fong Bates and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim – The Contemporary Asian Woman Writer., Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
10.00am - 11.00am, Reading and Panel Discussion: Dangerous Ideas, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
10.30am - 12.30pm, Basic Painting and Cartoon Workshop with Zunar, Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
11.15am - 12.15pm, Conversations: Anne Provoost and Franca Treur – Writing from the Low Countries., Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
11.15am - 12.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Shame on You!, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
12.30pm - 1.45 pmPoetry at Lunch – Penang Showcase!, Venue: China House, The Canteen
2.00 pm3:00pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Hello Darkness, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
2.00pm - 3.00pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Poetry and the World,Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
3.15pm - 4.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Judy Fong Bates and Robin Hemley – The Pain of the Memoir, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
5.00pm - 5.45pm, Book Discussion: Talkin’ About Taboo, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.00pm - 6.45pm. Two Book Launches: There Be Monsters by Julya Oui and Cerpen by Regina Ibrahim (Fix Novo),Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
7.00pm - 8.00pm, Festival Finale: Interchange – in conversation with Dain Said, Nandita Solomon, June Tan and Redza Minhat, Venue: China House,Vic's
9.30pm - 12.00am, Music at The Canteen – Zalila Lee, Venue: China House, The Canteen
For More Information:
Email: info@georgetownlitfest.com
URL: www.georgetownlitfest.com/
TW: twitter.com/GTLF_Penang
FB: www.facebook.com/georgetownlitfest
Map: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=1679
With almost 40 events and over 50 participants, the fifth annual George Town Literary Festival is about to descend on the beautiful and charming UNESCO World Heritage Site of George Town, Penang. The festival will run from the 27th to 29th of November.
In three weeks, we will welcome almost 40 writers and poets from Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the US, the UK, Chile, Canada, Germany, the Philippines and Malaysia. We are thrilled to have writers including Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Omar Musa, Jaap Blonk, Hanne Ørstavik, Wajahat Ali and our very own Marina Mahathir. Do look at our full writers and moderators list to see who’s going to be here.
This year we present our biggest and boldest festival yet!
We have book launches, workshops, a wayang kulit performance, panel discussions and readings, a poetry marathon, conversations, live music and so much more! Our theme this year ‘We Are Who We Are/Are We Who We Are?’ promises to be critical, provocative and engaging. Browse through our Festival Programme to get an idea of what we have in store.
This year, the festival takes place on Beach St and Armenian St - our festival village of sorts - where we will once again inhabit our beloved ChinaHouse and the new spaces at Black Kettle, The Space@216 Beach St, Cheah Kongsi and Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple on Armenian St.
Our festival bookstore Gerakbudaya Penang has been working hard to secure books from all our writers, so do come prepared for a mini bookfair!
We also have special events like a dinner with celebrated Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng, Pontianak - an all-female spoken word performance, a game called “Being Faust – Enter Mephisto” and a festival finale with a sneak preview of Interchange, the highly anticipated supernatural thriller from filmmaker Dain Iskandar Said.
As we believe in the diversity of the written word, we will have workshops in poetry, spoken word, translation and creating cartoons, all at a minimal cost.
Writers:
Wajahat Ali - Supported by U.S. Embassy
Wajahat Ali is a TV host, attorney and playwright. He is a journalist at Al Jazeera America. He helped launch the network as co-host of Al Jazeera America's The Stream, a daily news show that extended the conversation to social media and beyond. Ali is also the author of The Domestic Crusaders—the first major play about Muslim Americans, post-9/11. He is the lead author of the investigative report Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. Witty and emphatic, he speaks on the multifaceted Muslim American experience, and an emergent generation of millennials poised for social change.
Khairudin Aljunied - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Khairudin Aljunied is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. He has authored and edited several books which include Colonialism, Violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia (2009) and the newly published Radicals: Resistance and Protest in Colonial Malaya (2015). He is currently working on a book about Muslim cosmopolitan cultures in Southeast Asia.
Paul Augustin - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Paul Augustin was a musician for more than 15 years, recording compositions and producing three albums. He joined an events management company and then set up the Capricorn Connection – which focuses on festival organisation and management. He founded and has directed the Penang Island Jazz Festival since 2004. He is also a founder member of the Asian Jazz Festival Organisation and has been regularly invited to major jazz and music industry conferences across the world. He recently co-authored (with James Lochhead) the bestselling book, Just for the Love of It: Popular Music in Penang, 1930s–1960s (SIRD, 2015).
Jaap Blonk - Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Jaap Blonk is a Dutch composer and poet. His unfinished studies in mathematics and musicology mainly created a penchant for activities in a Dadaist vein, in the early 1980s he discovered the power and flexibility of his voice, and set out on a long-term research of phonetics and the possibilities of the human voice. At present, he has developed into a specialist in the creation and performance of sound poetry, supported by a powerful stage presence. He performs and gives workshops worldwide on a regular basis. With the use of live electronics the scope and range of his work has acquired a considerable extension and from his sound poetry scores he developed an independent body of visual work, which has been published and exhibited worldwide.
Chuah Guat Eng
Chuah Guat Eng is a Malaysian fiction writer. Her literary publications include two novels, Echoes of Silence (1994, 2009) and Days of Change (2010), and three short-story collections, Tales from the Baram River (2001), The Old House (2008), and Dream Stuff (2014). She has a PhD from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for her thesis, From Conflict to Insight: A Zen-based Reading Procedure for the Analysis of Fiction.
Evan Fallenberg
Evan Fallenberg is the author of the novels Light Fell (Soho Press, 2008) and When We Danced on Water (HarperCollins, 2011) and a translator of Hebrew fiction, plays and libretti. He has won or been shortlisted for prizes that include an American Library Association Award, the Edmund White Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the PEN Translation Prize and the TLS Prize for Translation of Hebrew Literature. He teaches creative writing and literary translation at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv and City University of Hong Kong, and has been invited to residencies by the MacDowell Colony, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation/Chateau de Lavigny. Fallenberg serves as an advisor to the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and as a judge for the Galtelli Literary Prize, and is founder and artistic director of Arabesque: an Arts and Residency Center in Old Acre.
Lily Yulianti Farid - Supported by AirAsia
Lily Yulianti Farid is a short story writer, founder and director of the Makassar International Writers Festival in Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Her published story collections are: Makkunrai (2008), Maisaura (2008), Family Room (2010), Ayahmu Bulan Engkau Matahari (2011). She has participated at Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Winternachten Festival, The Hague; Word Storm Festival, Byron Bay Writers Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, Bendigo Writers Festival and the Salihara Biennale. She received her MA and PhD in gender studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She co-founded Rumata' Artspace in Makassar in 2010 and works as one of the executive directors.
Marco Ferrarese - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Marco Ferrarese has travelled extensively and lived in Italy, the United States, China, Australia and Malaysia. He started vagabonding as a punk rock guitarist with metal punk band The Nerds, hitting the most famous and infamous stages across Europe and North America. Since 2009 he has been based in Southeast Asia as a writer, hardcore punk musician and researcher. He has written about travel, culture and extreme music in Asia. Marco’s first pulp novel Nazi Goreng (2013) explores the underbelly of the Malaysian international drug trade and displaced youth and is a bestseller in Malaysia. It was recently translated into Bahasa Malaysia by DuBook Press (2015). His short stories were featured in anthologies KL Noir Blue and Lost in Putrajaya (2014). His latest book, Banana Punk Rawk Trails (2015), documents his forays into the world of Malaysian and Indonesian metal punk.
Judy Fong Bates - Supported by Canada Council for the Arts
Judy Fong Bates immigrated to Canada from China as a young child. She is the author of the critically acclaimed short-story collection, China Dog and Other Stories, and the novel, Midnight at the Dragon Café, which was an American Library Association Notable Book, and the Everybody Reads selection for Portland, Oregon, and Toronto, Canada. Her latest work, a family memoir, The Year of Finding Memory, was listed in ‘The 2010 Globe 100’ by the Globe and Mail. She is currently working on a novel. Judy has two adult daughters and three grandchildren and lives with her husband on a farm outside of Toronto.
Maureen Freely - Supported by the British Council
Maureen Freely is an author, a journalist, a translator, and the Head of the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. She is perhaps best known as the translator of five books the Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. More recently she has translated or co-translated works by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Sait Faik Abasıyanık, Sabahatin Ali, Fetiye Çetin, Hasan Ali Toptaş, Tuba Çandar, and Sema Kaygusuz. Her own seventh novel, Sailing through Byzantium, was named as one of the best novels of 2013 in both the TLS and the Sunday Times. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and formerly chair of the Translators Association, she is currently the President of English PEN.
Robin Hemley
Robin Hemley is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and former Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa. He is the author of 11 works of fiction and nonfiction and the winner of such awards as a Guggenheim Fellowship, A Bogliasco Fellowship, and three Pushcart prizes in fiction and nonfiction. He has been awarded residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the MacDowell Colony, Varuna Writers House, the Hermitage, and others. His work has appeared in such journals as The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Orion, and many of the finest literary magazines in the U.S. He is currently the Director of the Writing Program at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.
Joshua Ip
Joshua Ip is the Singapore Literature Prize-winning author of two volumes of poetry from Math Paper Press: making love with scrabble tiles (2013), and sonnets from the singlish (2012). He won the Golden Point Award for Prose in 2013, and was runner-up for Poetry in 2011. He has co-edited two poetry anthologies: A Luxury We Cannot Afford (2014) and SingPoWriMo 2014: The Anthology (2014). He is working on his first graphic novel, Ten Stories Below (2015). He organized the inaugural Singapore Poetry Writing Month in 2014, and the first Singapore Manuscript Bootcamp in 2015.
Pablo Jofré
Pablo Jofré has published Extranjería (Ediciones Bizarras, Ciudad de Guatemala 2015), Usted (Milena Berlin, 2013), Abecedario (Siníndice, Logroño 2012/Cuarto Propio, Santiago 2015) and in the anthology El tejedor en… Berlín by Ernesto Estrella and Jorge Locane (L.U.P.I., Sestao 2015). Together with musician Andi Meißner he leads the poetry-music duo Jofre Meissner Project. In June 2012 his poem The Light Age was included in the Bombing of Poems event (Casagrande-Southbank Center) over the Jubilee Garden in London. In 2010, he won the first prize at the Sant Andreu de la Barca Competition (in Spain), for his poem La Danza De La Existencia and in 2009, he was awarded an Honourable Mention in the Chilean National Contest of Literature Gabriela Mistral for his book Abecedario. He studies literature, anthropology and journalism in Chilean and Spanish universities, and lives and works as cultural reporter and literary translator in Berlin.
Khoo Salma - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Khoo Salma is a Penang-based writer, publisher and heritage advocate. She is currently president of Penang Heritage Trust and custodian of the Sun Yat Sen Museum, Penang, at 120 Armenian Street. As co-founder of the Little Penang Street Market through Lestari Heritage Network, she has been involved in growing Penang’s creative economy. She has written or co-written more than a dozen books on Penang and Perak – on social history, cultural heritage and sustainable development – including Penang Postcard Collection, 1899–1930s (2003), More than Merchants: A History of the German-Speaking Community in Penang, 1800s–1940s (2006), Sun Yat Sen in Penang (2008), Heritage Houses of Penang (2009) and the award-winning The Chulia in Penang: Patronage and Place-Making around the Kapitan Kling Mosque, 1786–1957 (2014).
Lim Swee Tin
Lim Swee Tin was born in Bachok, Kelantan. He began writing in the early 1970’s and published his first collection of poems Eva in 1981. Lim has won many literary awards which include the ‘1983 Puisiputra 2 Award’ for his collection of poems entitled Akrab (1985), the 1982/83, 1984/85, 1988/89 Hadiah Sastera Malaysia (Malaysia Literary Award) and the SEA Write Award in 2000. Among his collections of poems are A Child and the Other Poems (1993), Sebuah Fregmen Cinta (1998, 2000), Citra Kurnia (2004), Memetik Mawar (2005), Sukma Cemara (2006), Potret Harum Kuntum Zaitun (2006), Cakerawala Kemerdekaan (2007), Eva Masih untuk Sebuah Nama (2008), Mencari Indah (2008), and Stanza Memmorabilia (2009), Embun Sejuta Mawar (2015). He currently lectures in Malay Literature at University Putra Malaysia.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim - Due to unforeseen circumstances, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim will not be participating
Shirley Geok-lin LIM is a Malaysian-born, US-based writer and poet who has written seven poetry (Crossing the Peninsula won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, first for a woman and Asian) and three short story collections, three novels, The Shirley Lim Collection, and Among the White Moon Faces (American Book Award memoir winner). Malacca-born, she has also published critical studies and numerous anthologies (The Forbidden Stitch was a 1990 American Book Award winner) is a Fulbright and Wien International Fellow and completed her Ph.D. at Brandeis University. Recipient of the MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award and UCSB Faculty Research Lecture Award, Ngee Ann Kongsi Distinguished Professorship (NUS), she served as Chair Professor of English at University of Hong Kong. She is launching three new poetry collections in 2015: The Irreversible Sun (West End Press); Do You Live In? and Ars Poetic for the Day (Ethos).
Marina Mahathir
Marina Mahathir is a newspaper columnist, human rights activist, TV producer and founder of a women's travel website, Zafigo.com. Her activism began with 12 years as President of the Malaysian AIDS Council, and currently as a member of the Board of Sisters in Islam. She travels frequently to speak at conferences and corporate events, locally and abroad. Since 1989, she has written a bi-weekly column called Musings in The Star newspaper and has had her pieces published in 50 days: Rantings by MM (2009) and Telling It Straight (2012).
Anthony Milner - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Anthony Milner is the Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia; Adjunct Professor at the University of Malaya; and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He has been one of the leading historians of Malaysia over the past thirty years and a pioneer in the history of ideas. He is the author of Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (1982), The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya (1995, 2002) and The Malays (2008, 2012).
Amir Muhammad
Amir Muhammad is a writer, publisher and occasional filmmaker from Malaysia. Two of his documentaries have been banned. His publishing company Fixi was established in 2011 and has to date published 115 titles. Fixi won the coveted International Adult Trade Publisher Award at the London Book Fair 2014.
Dipika Mukherjee - Supported by Fixi
Dipika Mukherjee is a writer and sociolinguist. Her debut novel, Thunder Demons (Gyaana 2011), was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize; it is being republished (Repeater, UK) and distributed by Penguin/Random House worldwide in Summer 2016. She also won the 2014 Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence and the Platform Flash Fiction competition in April 2009. She has edited two anthologies of Southeast Asian short stories: Silverfish New Writing 6 (2006) and The Merlion and Hibiscus (2002) and her first poetry chapbook, The Palimpsest of Exile, was published by Rubicon Press (Canada) in 2009. Her writing appears in publications around the world including Asia Literary Review, World Literature Today, Rhino, Chicago Quarterly Review, Postcolonial Text and South Asian Review. She is a Contributing Editor for Jaggery (A Southasian Diasporic Arts and Literature Journal) and curates an Asian/American Reading Series for the Literary Guild, Chicago.
Omar Musa - Supported by AirAsia
Omar Musa is a Malaysian-Australian author, rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He is the former winner of the Australian Poetry Slam and the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam. He has released three hip hop albums, two poetry books (including Parang), appeared on ABC's Q&A and received a standing ovation at TEDx Sydney at the Sydney Opera House. He has toured his poetry and music extensively internationally, in Asia, the USA, Europe, South America and Australia. His debut novel Here Come the Dogs was published by Penguin Australia in 2014. Here Come the Dogs was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award and he was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015. Here Come the Dogs comes out in the USA through The New Press in January 2016. He is currently working on a new album and a novel that is set in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Ooi Kee Beng - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Ooi Kee Beng is the Deputy Director of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute (formerly the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), Singapore. He is a prolific writer and observer of the Malaysian scene. He writes for The Edge Weekly and is the founding-editor of ISEAS Perspective, ISEAS Monitor and Penang Monthly. His major books include the award-winning The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time (2006); The Eurasian Core and Its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (2015); Lim Kit Siang: Defying the Odds (2015); Merdeka for the Mind: Essays on Malaysian Struggles in the 21st Century (2015); In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee (2010); Continent, Coast, Ocean: Dynamics of Regionalism in Eastern Asia (2008); and Lost in Transition: Malaysia under Abdullah (2008). He has translated several classical Chinese war manuals into Swedish and English.
Hanne Ørstavik - Supported by Forlaget Oktober & Mimir Sdn Bhd
With the publication of the novel Cut (Hakk) in 1994, Hanne Ørstavik embarked on a career that would make her one of the most remarkable and admired authors in Norwegian contemporary literature. Her literary breakthrough came three years later with the publication of Love (Kjærlighet), which in 2006 was voted the 6th best Norwegian book of the last 25 years in a prestigious contest in Dagbladet. Since then she has written 14 acclaimed and much discussed novels and received a host of literary prizes which include the Dobloug Prize (2002) and the Brage Prize (2004) for her novel Presten. In 2008, Oktober publishing house published the anthology Openings, containing essays on Ørstavik’s books written by Nordic literary critics and academics. Her work has been translated into 18 languages.
Anne Provoost - Supported by the Embassy of Belgium
Belgian writer Anne Provoost is the author of a series of provocative novels that examine topics as varied as right-wing extremism, sexual abuse, and religion through the eyes of young protagonists. One of her novels was made into an English-language feature film. She is a member of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature and a member of PEN. Her work has been translated into 20 different languages.
Danton Remoto - Supported by the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus
Danton Remoto studied at universities in the Philippines, the UK and the USA. He has published 12 books in English and Filipino and have been published in the UK, US, Spain, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Japan. He is a popular TV and radio presenter in the Philippines as well as a Professorial Lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University.
Kate Rogers’
Kate Rogers’ new poetry collection, Foreign Skin, debuts in Toronto with Aeolus House Press in July 2015 and in Hong Kong in October this year. Kate’s poetry about the Hong Kong protests last year have appeared in The Guardian and the Asia Literary Review. Other recent publication credits include the Kyoto Journal; ASIATIC: the Journal of English Language and Literature at the Islamic University of Malaysia; Contemporary Verse II; Orbis International; and Many Mountains Moving. Previous books are City of Stairs (2012) and Painting the Borrowed House (2008), both of which received publication grants from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Kate is co-editor of the OutLoud Too anthology (2014) and co-editor of Not A Muse: the inner lives of women (2009).
Robin Ruizendaal - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Robin Ruizendaal is the director of the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Theatre Museum and artistic director of the Taiyuan Puppet Theatre Company in Taipei, Taiwan. He holds a PhD in Sinology from Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has written and directed more than 20 modern and traditional Taiwanese theatre productions that have been performed in over 30 countries around the world, including Malaysia. He has done field research on most Asian puppet theatre traditions and curated numerous puppet theatre exhibitions around the world, and is the author of Asian Theatre Puppets (Thames & Hudson, 2009). He is cultural adviser to the Taipei city government.
Dain Iskandar Said - Supported by Apparat
Dain Iskandar Said has worked with images for almost 30 years, concentrating on feature films, documentaries and video installations. His work has been showcased at the Sydney Biennale and the Burj Al Arab. His last film Bunohan won international acclaim. He is currently finishing his film ‘Interchange’, to be released in 2016.
Tan Sooi Beng - Supported by Gerakbudaya Bookshop
Tan Sooi Beng is professor of ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia. She is the author of Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993), and co-author of Music of Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (Ashgate, 2004) and Longing for the Past: The 78 RPM Era in Southeast Asia (Dust to Digital, 2013). She is the musical director and composer for youth theatre community productions such as Kisah Pulau Pinang (2006), Ronggeng Merdeka (2007), Kotai Penang (2008), Opera Pasar (2010), Ceritera Taman Botanik (2011) and George Town Heboh: Streets Alive (2012) and Wayang Time (2015). Her gamelan composition Perubahan has been recorded in the CD Rhythm in Bronze (Five Arts Centre, 2001).
Tan Twan Eng
Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang, Malaysia. His debut novel, The Gift of Rain, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Man Asian Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and was also shortlisted for the IMPAC-Dublin Prize. He is currently working on his third novel.
Franca Treur - Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Franca Treur is a Dutch novelist who has been nominated for a range of literary awards and won the 2010 Selexyz Debut Prize for her bestselling novel Dorsvloer vol confetti (Confetti on the Threshing Floor). The novel was released as a feature-length and prize winning film in 2014 called ‘Confetti Harvest’. Her second novel, De woongroep (The Roommates), was published in 2014. She is a regular contributor of stories, columns and essays to national newspapers and journals which include NRC Handelsblad, deVolkskrant, Groene Amsterdammer, Vrij Nederland, radio 1 and Vogue. Her collection of short stories Ik zou maar nergens op rekenen (I shouldn’t wager on anything) is forthcoming. She lives in Amsterdam.
Mark Trowell
Mark Trowell is a leading Australian criminal lawyer and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2000. He has prosecuted criminal cases for the Director of Public Prosecutions and has also appeared as counsel at two Royal Commissions. He is co-chair of the criminal law standing committee of LAWASIA. He has also represented the interests of the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union at the sedition trial of the late Karpal Singh; the criminal trials and appeals of opposition leaders Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia and Sarath Fonseka in Sri Lanka. In 2013 he was an observer at the treason trials of several members of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (commonly known as the Red Shirts) in Thailand. He has published Sodomy II: The Trial of Anwar Ibrahim (Marshall Cavendish, 2012) and The Prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim: The Final Play (Marshall Cavendish, 2015).
Anja Utler - Supported by the Goethe-Institute
Anja Utler was born in Schwandorf, Germany in 1973, and currently shuttles between Vienna, where she teaches poetry at the University of Applied Arts, and Regensburg, where she is involved in a research project on the perception of spoken poetry. Her poetry collection münden – entzüngeln won the coveted Leonce-und-Lena-Preis for Poetry in 2003. For her innovative poetic exploration of political issues such as ecology in her latest book ausgeübt. Eine Kurskorrektur, she was awarded with the Basler Lyrikpreis (Basel Poetry Prize) in 2014. Utler's works explore the impact of different media and modes of perception on the experience of a text: her works brinnen (2006) and jana, vermacht (2009) were both published in print and audio formats; jana, vermacht was also transformed into an installation for an exhibition in 2014. Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Xu Xi - Supported by City University of Hong Kong
Xu Xi is author of nine books of fiction & essays. Recent titles are Access: Thirteen Tales and the novel Habit of a Foreign Sky, a finalist for the Man Asian Literary Prize. She is also editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English, most recently The Queen of Statue Square: New Hong Kong Short Fiction. For eighteen years, she had a parallel career in marketing for multinationals in Asia and the U.S. Currently, she is writer-in-residence at City University of Hong Kong where she established and directs Asia’s first low-residency MFA in creative writing. A Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, she lives between New York and Hong Kong.
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is a poet and essayist from Cebu, Philippines. He has received an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, USA. His work has received awards from the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Phiilippines Free Press and the Carlos Palanca Awards. His first book of poems The Highest Hiding Place received the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award.
Zunar (Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaque)
Zunar (Zulkiflee SM Anwar Ulhaque) is a political cartoonist from Malaysia. With the slogan, "How Can I be Neutral, Even My Pen Has a Stand", he exposes corruption and abuse of power committed by the government of Malaysia through his art. Zunar is now facing nine charges under the Sedition Act and facing possible 43 years imprisonment if he is sentenced and charged in a court proceeding due to start in September 2015. Five of his books have been banned by the Malaysian government on the grounds that the contents are "detrimental to public order." He was awarded the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award 2011 by Cartoonists Rights Network International and the Human Rights Watch Hellman/Hammett Award for 2011 & 2015.
Writers: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=456
Moderators
Umapagan Ampikaipakan
Umapagan Ampikaipakan is a media moll. You can find him almost everywhere - from newsprint to the world-wide-web, from radio to television - where he contemplates everything from the idiosyncrasies of Malaysian politics to his unnatural obsession with the written word. Blessed with a critic’s pen and a reader’s enthusiasm, Uma, is one of Malaysia’s foremost literary voices. His long running radio show, Bookmark on BFM89.9, is Malaysia's pre-eminent broadcast on all things book related. He is also a film critic with At the Movies, a pop-culture columnist for #edGY, and the co-host of BFM89.9's drive time radio show, The Evening Edition. He also runs The Cooler Lumpur Festival, KL's annual gathering of literary minds, thought leaders and Asia’s first and only festival of ideas.
Sharon Bakar
Sharon Bakar was born in Britain but has lived and worked in Malaysia for more than 30 years. A teacher-trainer by profession, she now teaches creative writing in partnership with various organisations. Her articles, reviews, and short fiction have appeared in a number of Malaysian publications. She is the editor of an anthology of short fiction, Collateral Damage, published by Silverfish Books, and is the co-editor (along with Bernice Chauly) of the Readings From Readings series which has grown out of Kuala Lumpur’s longest running literary event, Readings@Seksan, started by Bernice Chauly in 2005.
Latif Kamaluddin
Latif Kamaluddin is a former professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia and currently a freelance researcher. He spent almost 20 years doing street work with transgendered communities, developmental work with the visually impaired, urban poor and abused children. He has six poetry anthologies to his credit and currently working on two more. Latif has travelled extensively, having trained in Germany, Scotland, Sweden and Australia. He is also an experienced holistic nutritional counselor and practitioner of Surat Shabd Yoga (Yoga of Sound and Light).
Eddin Khoo
Eddin Khoo a poet, writer, translator and journalist. Following a tenure as an arts and culture journalist with the Sunday Star, Malaysia’s leading English language weekly, he founded the cultural centre PUSAKA. He has worked intimately with some of Malaysia’s leading traditional artists including shadow puppeteers, musicians, dramatists and dancers. He has focused principally on the state of Kelantan, researching aspects of oral transmission, cultural and religious politics and aspects of ritual in traditional theatre. Among his publications is a book of selected writings by the Malaysian artist and critic Ismail Zain, Intermediations: Selected Writings on Art, and a translation of poems into Malay, Sajak-Sajak by the American poet Christopher Merrill. He collaborated with Ibrahim Hussein to complete the acclaimed Malaysian artist’s autobiography, titled Ib: A Life.
Sharaad Kuttan
Sharaad Kuttan has a MA in Sociology from the National University of Singapore. He co-edited a collection of essays on Singapore, titled Looking At Culture in the early 1990s. He is also a member of the Singapore branch of the International Art Critics Association. As part of his contributions to the human rights agenda in Malaysia he co-founded the Centre for Independent Journalism and ran the short-lived Radiq Radio initiative. He has a chapter on civil society action in the struggle for electoral reform in the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia publication, Elections and Democracy in Malaysia. He is currently a producer with the radio station, BFM89.9 in the Klang valley.
Jasmine Low
Jasmine Low has actively promoted the arts, independent music and spoken word community events since 2002. A big part of her contribution to the arts community in the Klang Valley include curating and organising a series of music and spoken word events titled Valhalla Open Mic, Doppelganger Open Mic Open Stage and Wayang Kata. She has presented her ideas on sound frequencies at TEDxMMU. Jasmine is also co-founder of a creative marketing agency GoInternationalGroup.com and social enterprise startup Doppelmyfund.com.
Dhanendran Maheswaran
Dhanendran Maheswaran or Ksatriya, is driven by this powerful statement - “Be kind, be brave, speak truth”. He is a storyteller, poet and performer who explores the themes of identity, marginalization and social justice through music and poetry. He runs “Say It Like You Mean It” (SILYMI), a mentorship program for young artists and is the current Chair for the Penang Arts Industries Roundtable, an independent initiative to map the Penang arts landscape and discuss development pathways.
Ahmad Fuad Rahmat
Ahmad Fuad Rahmat is currently doing his PhD in cultural studies at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. He is also the editor-in-chief for ProjekDialog.com and co-hosts Night School on BFM Radio with Sharaad Kuttan.
Gareth Richards
Gareth Richards is a former academic who taught politics at the University of Manchester and Universiti Malaya. He is the founder-director of Impress Creative & Editorial, a small and innovative company involved in diverse areas of the arts and book production, notably consultant editing and translation. In May 2014 he set up Gerakbudaya Bookshop, Penang, the first independent bookshop in the UNESCO World Heritage site of George Town. He is the co-author/editor of Asia–Europe Interregionalism: Critical Perspectives (1999) and wrote the texts for Portraits of Penang: Little India (2011).
Azmi Sharom
Azmi Sharom is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya, where he teaches environmental law and human rights Law. His latest academic publications are as chief editor of Human Rights and Peace in Southeast Asia Series 2: Defying the Impasse, and Human Rights and Peace in Southeast Asia Series 2: Amplifying the Voices (Southeast Asian Human Rights Studies Network, 2013). He writes fortnightly columns on current affairs for The Star and Sin Chew Jit Poh. A selection of his journalistic writing was published as Brave New World (SIRD, 2015) this year.
Shivani Sivagurunathan
Shivani Sivagurunathan writes short fiction and poetry. Her collection of short stories, Wildlife on Coal Island, came out in 2011 and was republished by Harper Collins India in 2012. She lectures in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. She is currently working on a new collection of short stories.
Michael Vatikiotis
Michael Vatikiotis works on promoting dialogue and conflict resolution in Southeast Asia. Formerly editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, Vatikiotis has been a writer and journalist in Asia for 27 years. He has lived in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong and has written two books on regional politics. His published fiction includes The Spice Garden, a novel on religious conflict in Eastern Indonesia and The Painter of Lost Souls. He is a regular contributor to a number of regional newspapers. Vatikiotis is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London has a PhD from Oxford University and an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland.
Malachi Edwin Vethamani
Malachi Edwin Vethamani is Professor of Modern English Literature, School of English, at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His most recent publication is A Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English (Maya Press). He has a monthly column entitled English Language Matters in the New Sunday Times, a national Malaysian newspaper.
Yin Shao Loong
Yin Shao Loong has served as policy advisor to the Selangor State Executive Councillor for Environment, Tourism, and Consumer Affairs. He was formerly a Research Officer at the Third World Network with extensive experience in treaty processes at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD). A columnist at The Malaysian Insider and the Selangor Times, he edited Malaysian Environment in Crisis (2004) and New Malaysian Essays: Vol. 3 (2010). In 2012 he delivered several public lectures on the history of ideas of race. He is currently the Executive Director of Institut Rakyat, a progressive think tank based in Kuala Lumpur.
Moderators: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=459
Performers
Mia Palencia
Mia Palencia launched her luminous career as the other half of well-loved Sabahan jazz duo Double Take with Roger Wang when she was just 16 years old. In 2007, she began writing and producing original music and has released three solo albums and toured in Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia. In 2010, she was offered a full scholarship to study Songwriting at the University of Tasmania. Her research, which involved analysing traditional Sabahan music and incorporating it into contemporary composition led her to compose original music for Malaysia’s longest-running musical, “Mud: Our Story of KL.” Her soon-to-be released seventh album featuring her Australian quartet, In Good Company was recorded with prolific Australian jazz producer Mal Stanley at ABC Studios, Melbourne.
Pontianak - Spoken Word
Women have been accused of being witches, for practicing witchcraft since the beginning of time. But in pre-historical societies, women grew herbs, developed medicines, healed the sick, kept the land fertile, all the while connected to spiritual life through prayer and ceremony. They were seen as priestesses, doctors. These women held the knowledge to society's physical and spiritual heath. The tides turned and these prayers and blessings were later accused of being spells and magic, and women were killed for ‘practicing’ such 'dark arts', chased out of, even banned from their traditional roles, their knowledge stolen from them. Pontianak explores the way women and ‘the feminine’ have been systematically demonized, their stories buried, their collective and individual power taken away from them, their role in society demeaned and diminished and their natural, universal status as goddesses removed, through traditional patriarchal narratives told as myth and legend. Drawing from the ghost stories and folklore that permeated our childhood nightmares and imagination, Pontianak is a re-imagining of the witch and of the feminine told through the spoken word poetry of five different women contemporary poets.
Performers:
Sheena Baharudin
Sheena Baharudin is a spoken word artist, writer, curator of the multidisciplinary performing arts event Numinous, published poet and educator. She has performed her works at various events including Melaka Arts Festival, Urbanscapes, Incitement, the George Town Literary Festival and Lit Up Fest in Singapore. Her first collection of poems, Rhymes for Mending Hearts, was published in 2013. She is currently working on her second book of poems.
Melizarani T.Selva
Melizarani T.Selva is a spoken word poet, writer and entrepreneur. Her rhymes are drawn from her infatuation with food, a wild curiosity in taboos and all the things her Mother told her not to do. She has performed her poetry at various literary events in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne including Readings@Seksan and gained first runner up at The National Singapore Slam, Lit Up 2013. Her first book of poems Taboo was recently published.
Elaine Foster
Elaine Foster is a writer, performer, poetry educator and activist. Founder of The Big Fish – a storytelling event for big kids, Elaine performs her poetry solo and in ensemble and has performed at #Word - The Cooler Lumpur Festival, Urbanscapes, the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, the George Town Literary Festival, kakiseni fest, the KLPAC Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe Fest with PBH's Other Voices Cabaret.
Illya Sumanto
Illya Sumanto is a spoken word artiste, director for children’s theater, event organizer, and part-time TV host, of which her current project is Giler Selamba Jane. She was part of SERONOK, a multinational Indonesia-Malaysia-US-UK poetry-art-technology collaboration that performed in KL, Jakarta and the Ubud’s Writers & Readers Festival.
Nabila Najwa
Nabila Najwa is a writer of poetry and prose published in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the United States. She has a profound interest in the underground DIY scene including the publication of independent zines. This is her first time collaborating in an ensemble performance to a live audience.
Reza Salleh
Reza Salleh is a central figure in Malaysia's thriving singer-songwriter circuit and is often seen in an intimate, solo acoustic format or backed by a tight, dynamic full-piece band. He calls his music “a little bit of everything”, drawing from pop, grunge, R&B and folk. A winner and five-time nominee at Anugerah Industri Music 2011, Reza was also the first independent singer-songwriter to be invited to do a full showcase at the Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS. He has performed in Australia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and Japan. He was the first Malaysian to be invited to play at Japan's 19th Annual Sunset Live Festival in Fukuoka, Japan (2011) and invited to play the Asia Music Found showcase and the Nakasu Jazz Festival in 2014 and 2015.
Wayang Kulit Sri Warisan Pusaka
PUSAKA is proud to present, as part of the George Town Literary Festival, Kumpulan Wayang Kulit Sri Warisan Pusaka from Machang, Kelantan. The group is led by Abdul Rahman Dollah (Dalang Nawi) and Mohamad Hassan Noor. They are both diciples of the late great Tok Dalang Abdullah Ibrahim, famously known as Tok Dalang Dollah Baju Merah. The group has performed to great acclaim both nationally and internationally, and just recently completed a US residency with CaravanSerai in a month long tour of 6 cities around the mid-west in Spring 2015.
Zalila Lee
Zalila Lee bares her soul through shaded-headgear and intimately strung words. With her gritty vocals, she sings with an emotional dynamism, coupled with an intense conviction on guitar through a crossbreed of plucking, strumming, and palm thumping. Her recently released album, Shadows, displays her musical influences from folk and blues, with her own distinct rhythms and lyricism. Active in the Malaysian music scene for the past decade as a percussionist and back-up vocalist, she has worked on records with artists like Shelley Leong, Az Samad, and Bihzhu, as well as live shows with Paladin, Froya, and Elvira Arul. As she has been so much part of other artists stories, it’s now time to tell her story at the GTLF.
Performers: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=462
Happening Simultaneously: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=465
Programme:
Friday, 27th November, 2015
10.30am - 12.00pm, Writing Workshop : Shirley Lim – Poetry
Inside Out: From Imagination to Craft to Poem (CANCEL) Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
1.00pm - 2.30pm, Writing Workshop : Omar Musa – Spoken Word Poetry
How to Bring a Poem to Life, Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
3.00pm - 4.00pm, Voices : Woman is I Personal monologues from Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC), Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
4.00pm - 5.00pm, Book Launch – Mark Trowell, The Prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim: The Final Play (Marshall Cavendish), Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.00pm - 7.30pm, Opening Ceremony with YAB Lim Guan Eng, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
8.00pm - 9.00pm, Wayang Kulit Seri Warisan Pusaka, Venue: Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple
9.30pm - 12.00am, Music at The Canteen – Mia Palencia, Venue: China House, The Canteen
Saturday, 28th November, 2015
9.30am - 10.30am, Cartooning as an Art of Protest, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
10.00 am - 11.00am, Reading and Panel Discussion: The Other Side of Silence, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
10.00am - 11.00am, Reading and Panel Discussion: The Play’s the Thing, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
10.30am - 12.00pm, Writing Workshop : Maureen Freely – What is Literary Translation?, Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
11.15am - 12.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: The State of the Nation, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
11.15am - 1215pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: The Malay Dilemma, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
12.30pm - 1.45pm, Poetry at Lunch: Poetry Marathon, Venue: China House, The Canteen
2.00pm - 3.00pm, Conversations:Wajahat Ali and Marina Mahathir – Who Is Entitled?, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
2.00pm - 3.00pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Fear, Guns and Amerika.Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
3.15pm - 4.15pm, Conversations:Maureen Freely and Anja Utler – Can The Subterranean Speak?, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
3.15pm - 4.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Futile States, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
5.00pm - 5.45pm, Book Launch –Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English (Maya Press) by Malachi Edwin Vethamani, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.00pm - 6.30pm, Book Launch – Rules of Desire (Fixi Novo) by Dipika Mukherjee, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.30pm - 10.00pm, Dinner & Conversation with Tan Twan Eng, Venue: The Blue Mansion
6.30pm - 7.15pm, And the winners for the D.K Dutt Memorial Award are…, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
7.00pm - 8.00pm, Aku Mahu Hidup Seribu Tahun Lagi – the poetry of Chairil Anwar, Venue: China House,Vic's
7.30pm - 11.59pm, Two Book Launches and Live Music!, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
9.30pm - 12.00am, Music at The Canteen – Reza Salleh, Venue: China House, The Canteen
10.30pm - 11.59pm, Spoken Word Event – Pontianak., Venue: Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple
Sunday, 29th November, 2015
10.00am - 11.00am, Conversations: Judy Fong Bates and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim – The Contemporary Asian Woman Writer., Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
10.00am - 11.00am, Reading and Panel Discussion: Dangerous Ideas, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
10.30am - 12.30pm, Basic Painting and Cartoon Workshop with Zunar, Venue: Cheah Kongsi, Scholar's Room
11.15am - 12.15pm, Conversations: Anne Provoost and Franca Treur – Writing from the Low Countries., Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
11.15am - 12.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Shame on You!, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
12.30pm - 1.45 pmPoetry at Lunch – Penang Showcase!, Venue: China House, The Canteen
2.00 pm3:00pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Hello Darkness, Venue: Black Kettle, Mrs Potts
2.00pm - 3.00pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Poetry and the World,Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
3.15pm - 4.15pm, Reading and Panel Discussion: Judy Fong Bates and Robin Hemley – The Pain of the Memoir, Venue: Black Kettle, Chip
5.00pm - 5.45pm, Book Discussion: Talkin’ About Taboo, Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
6.00pm - 6.45pm. Two Book Launches: There Be Monsters by Julya Oui and Cerpen by Regina Ibrahim (Fix Novo),Venue: The Space @ 216 Beach Street
7.00pm - 8.00pm, Festival Finale: Interchange – in conversation with Dain Said, Nandita Solomon, June Tan and Redza Minhat, Venue: China House,Vic's
9.30pm - 12.00am, Music at The Canteen – Zalila Lee, Venue: China House, The Canteen
For More Information:
Email: info@georgetownlitfest.com
URL: www.georgetownlitfest.com/
TW: twitter.com/GTLF_Penang
FB: www.facebook.com/georgetownlitfest
Map: www.georgetownlitfest.com/?page_id=1679