Who is Lloyd Fernando?

Lloyd Fernando was born in Sri Lanka in 1926, and in 1938, at the age of twelve, he migrated to Singapore with his family. This early migration across the Indian Ocean had an enriching influence on Fernando, the writer and scholar, as it was to plant the seeds of a transcultural, diasporic imagination in him at an impressionable age. Life was moving along at a steady pace, and Fernando continued his schooling at St Patrick's, but the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1943 to 1945 dealt a severe blow, interrupting his formal schooling and, most tragically, costing his father's life in one of the Japanese bombing raids. (Mohammad Quayum)

During the Japanese occupation, Fernando worked in a variety of manual labor jobs.
Lloyd Fernando thereafter graduated from the University of Malaya in Singapore, and subsequently served as an instructor at the Singapore Polytechnic. Lloyd Fernando became an assistant lecturer at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur in 1960. Mr. Fernando was awarded a scholarship at Leeds University, UK where he received his PhD.
In 1967 Fernando was appointed to serve as a professor at the English Department of the University of Malaya, where he served until his retirement in 1978. Subsequently, Mr. Fernando studied law at City University in the United Kingdom and then at Middle Temple, returning to Malaysia with two law degrees, whereupon he was employed by a law firm, and thereafter started a separate law practice business.

Green is the Color is one of his works. Lloyd Fernando's Green is the Colour is a very interesting novel. The country isstill scarred by violence, vigilante groups roam the countryside, religiousextremists set up camp in the hinterland, there are still sporadic outbreaks of fighting in the city, and everyone, all the time, is conscious of being watched. It comes as some surprise to find that the story is actually a contemporary (andvery clever) reworking of a an episode from the Misa Melayu, an 18th century classic written by Raja Chulan.In this climate of unease, Fernando employs a multi-racial cast of characters. At the centre of the novel there's a core of four main characters, good (if idealistic)young people who cross the racial divide to become friends, and even fall in love. There's Dahlan, a young lawyer and activist who invites trouble by making impassioned speech on the subject of religious intolerance on the steps of a Malacca church; his friend from university days, Yun Ming, a civil servant working for the Ministry of Unity who seeks justice by working from within the government. The most fully realised character of the novel is Siti Sara, and much of the story is told from her viewpoint. A sociologist and academic, she's newly returned from studies in America where she found life much more straightforward, and trapped in a loveless marriage to Omar, a young man much influenced by the Iranian revolution who seeks purification by joining religious commune. The hungry passion between Yun Ming and Siti - almost bordering on violence at times andbreaking both social and religious taboos - is very well depicted. (Dahlan falls inlove with Gita, Sara's friend and colleague, and by the end of the novel has madean honest woman of her.)Like the others, Sara is struggling to make sense of events :Nobody could get may sixty-nine right, she thought. It was hopeless to pretendyou could be objective about it. speaking even to someone close to you, you were careful for fear the person might unwittingly quote you to others. if a third person was present, it was worse, you spoke for the other person's benefit. If he was Malay you spoke one way, Chinese another, Indian another. even if he wasn't listening. in the end the spun tissue, like an unsightly scab, became your vision of what happened; the wound beneath continued to run pus.Although the novel is narrated from a third person viewpoint, it is curious that just one chapter is narrated by Sara's father, one of the minor characters, an elderly village imam and a man of great compassion and insight. This shift in narration works so well that I'm surprised Fernando did not make wider use of it.

 

 

 An exciting first novel set in pre-independence Singapore. Scorpion Orchid follows the lives of four young men—a Malay, an Eurasian, a Chinese and a Tamil—against a backdrop of racial violence and political factions struggling for dominance. Excerpts from classical Malay and colonial English sources appear throughout the narrative, illuminating the roots and significance of this period in history.

List of his works:

Scorpion Orchid, 1976,

Cultures in Conflict, 1986,

Green is the Colour, 1993.

Sybil Kathigasu, Remembering one woman's courage.

Sybil Kathigasu was born Sybil Medan Daly to an Irish-Eurasian planter (Joseph Daly) and a French-Eurasian midwife (Beatrice Matilda Daly née Martin) on 3 September 1899 in Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia. Her middle name reflects her birthplace, Medan. Her paternal grandparents were an Irishman and a Eurasian woman while her maternal grandparents were a Frenchman (Pierre Louie Martin) and a Eurasian woman (Evelyn Adeline Martin née Morrett).

She was the fifth child and the only girl. She was trained as a nurse and midwife and spoke Cantonese fluently. She and her husband, Dr. Abdon Clement Kathigasu, operated a clinic at No 141 Brewster Road (now Jalan Sultan Idris Shah) in Ipoh from 1926 until the Japanese invasion of Malaya. The family escaped to the nearby town of Papan days before Japanese forces occupied Ipoh. The local Chinese community fondly remembered Dr. AC Kathigasu and gave him a Hakka nickname "You Loy-De".

Sybil Kathigasu GM was a Eurasian Malayan nurse who supported the resistance during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. She is the only Malayan woman to be ever awarded with the George Medal for bravery. 

Marriage and Family,
Sybil Kathigasu's husband was Dr. Arumugam Kanapathi Pillay, a Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan) Tamil from Taiping. He was born on 17 June 1892 in Taiping to Kanapathi Pillay and Thangam. He married Sybil in St John's church (now cathedral) in Bukit Nanas, Kuala Lumpur. Initially there had been a religious objection from her parents as he was a Hindu and she was a Catholic. However with agreement from his father, the wedding took place. They were married on 7 January 1919 in St John’s Church, Bukit Nanas, Kuala Lumpur. Sybil's first child was a son born on 26 August 1919, but due to major problems at birth, died after only 19 hours. He was named Michael after Sybil's elder brother who was born in Taiping on 12 November 1892 and was killed in Gallipoli on 10 July 1915 as a member of the British Army.
The devastating blow of baby Michael's death led to Sybil's mother suggesting that a young boy, William Pillay, born 25 October 1918, who she had delivered and had remained staying with them at their Pudu house, should be adopted by Sybil and her husband. Then a daughter, Olga, was born to Sybil in Pekeliling, Kuala Lumpur, on 26 February 1921. The earlier sudden death of baby Michael made Olga a very special baby to Sybil, when she was born without problems.
So when Sybil returned to Ipoh on 7 April 1921, it was not only with Olga, but also with William and her mother who had agreed to stay in Ipoh with the family.
A second daughter, Dawn, was born in Ipoh on 21 September 1936.
Their children are:
1. William Pillay (25 October 1918)-adopted
2. Michael Kathigasu (26 August 1919)-died after only 19 hours of being born
3. Olga Kathigasu (26 February 1921)
4. Dawn Kathigasu (21 September 1936)


Sybil Kathigasu died on 4 June 1948 aged 48 in Britain and her body was buried in Lanark, Scotland. Her body was later returned in 1949 to Ipoh and reburied at the Roman Catholic cemetery beside St Michael's Church opposite the Main Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (now SMK Convent) on Brewster Road (now Jalan Sultan Idris Shah) in Ipoh.
A road in Fair Park, Ipoh was named after Sybil Kathigasu (Jalan Syabil Kathigasu) after independence to commemorate her bravery. Today, the shop house at 74, Main Road, Papan, serves as a memorial to Sybil and her efforts.

I WONDER how many people of my generation (I’m 39), or the next, know of Sybil Kathigasu? I certainly don’t recall learning about her in school or from my peers. Older relatives, in their re-telling of wartime suffering, did not mention her name.
Had I not picked up a reprint of her memoirs entitled No Dram of Mercy, I’d probably remain ignorant of Kathigasu, recipient of the George Medal, “the highest British civilian award for bravery”.
Kathigasu was unabashedly pro-British (a sample: “I reminded the guard of what Malaya owed to Britain, and of the amount of talent, labour, money and material which had gone to make Malaya the happiest and most advanced country in the East.”), but this Eurasian lady also had pride as a Malayan and did the utmost to assist her fellow nationals, particularly in the town of Papan, Perak.
Against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion and occupation of Malaya, Kathigasu, whose husband was a doctor, provided medical aid to the civilian population of all races, and to members of the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).
Her tenacious character is first revealed in her refusal to join the British withdrawal to Singapore. Then there’s her persistence in tuning in to radios (instead of turning them in) for news from the free world. Her perilous aid to MPAJA guerrillas finally led to her betrayal and incarceration by the dreaded Kempetei (Japanese secret police).
In No Dram, the author does not wallow in self-pity, choosing not to dwell on personal suffering but telling of beatings and torture in an almost matter-of-fact way:
“The places on which the blows were concentrated were those containing no vital nerve or organ so that no permanent injury resulted to the victim ? these parts of my body were soon solid bruises.”
That which apparently mattered more to her was the well being of her loved ones, including her five-year old child, Dawn, who was strung up a tree and threatened with immolation by Kathigasu’s sadistic interrogator, Sergeant Yoshimura.
Kathigasu’s selflessness can best be summed up in her own words: “The thought (of death) did not disturb me ? and I had the consolation of knowing that my family would be safe, and that I had successfully resisted all attempts to wring from me information about the guerrillas and their contacts.”
Her sudden demise not long after liberation casts a shadow on her otherwise triumphant story, and, unfortunately, we learn not of the fate of several important characters in her book.
These include Moru, her link with the guerrillas; Chen Yen of the MPAJA; and Dr A.C. Kathigasu, her husband.
With so little in evidence today of Sybil Kathigasu’s grit and sacrifice, No Dram of Mercy serves as reminder (or introduction, for those of my generation, perhaps) of a woman who survived terrible odds with only her unwavering faith in justice and in God, and of a time when Malayans of all races persevered in the face of adversity. 


"Great Saint Anthony, please intercede for me with the Infant Jesus to give me the strength and courage to bear bravely what God's Holy Will has ordained for me. Let me face death, if I must, in the spirit of the Holy Martyrs. But if I am spared to write a book about what I have undergone, I promise that the proceeds from the sale of the book shall go to building a church in your name, in Ipoh, and, if there is any over when the church is completed, to the relief of the poor and suffering, whatever their race or religion. Please help me, Saint Anthony." — Kathigasu, Sybil. No Dram of Mercy (2006), pp. 162. Prometheus)

Tan Twan Eng

 

 Maybe not everyone familiar with this face even know about him. He is one of the infamous writer in Malaysia. His name is Tan Twan Eng. He was born in Penang in 1972. He lived in various places in Malaysia as a child. But now he divides his time between Malaysia and Cape Town.

He studied law through the University of London.  He later worked as n advocate and solicitor in one of Kuala Lumpur's most reputable law firms. He also has a first-dan ranking in akido and is a strong proponent for the conservation of heritage buildings. He has spent the last year travelling around South Africa, and currently lives in Cape Town where he is working on his second book.

His first novel is The Gift of Rain published in 2007, was linglisted for the Man Booker Prize. His book has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek Romanian Czech and Serbian. His second and latest novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, was published in September 2012. It has been Shorlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012. He has won the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Tash Aw

 

Do you ever know him? Do you familiar with his writing? He was known as Tash Aw or his full name is Aw Ta Shi. He is a Malaysian writer that living in London. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan and grew up in Malaysia. His parents are Malaysian Chinese. He moved to England at 18 to attend university, where he studied law at Cambridge and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

He first began work on The Harmony Silk Factory in year 2005 in the evenings and at weekends. He than left his job as a lawyer in 2002 to work on the novel full time. It was finished a year later,nearly five years after Aw began the book.

The Harmony Silk  Factory won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, as well as being long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Tash Aw is now a full time writer. His second novel Map of the Invisble World, set in post independence Malaysia and Indonesia, will be pubished in May 2009.

Datuk Lat

 

Did you familiar with this cartoon image before? Did you know who create this cartoon? This cartoon was popular before when everyone know about this Kampung Boy.

The person that create this cartoon known as Mohamad Nor Khalid. He also known in his infamous name Datuk Lat as the character in his novel is Lat. He was born in Kota Baru, Perak on March 5th 1951. He was married and having four children. He has awarded Malaysian Honorific 'Datuk' in a year 1994. He has won Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize. He has worked as an artist and a cartoonist.  

 

Datuk Lat.