Politics of literary translation in plurilingual Malaysia and Singapore

Abstract

Last year, I translated Singaporean writer Alfian Sa’at’s flash fiction collection Malay Sketches into Chinese for publication in Taiwan. Malay Sketches bears the same title as British colonial administrator Frank Swettenham’s 1895 travelogues whose orientalist portrayal of Malay lives, customs and beliefs has been subverted in Alfian Sa’at’s work, which subtly captures the realities of life for the Malay ethnic minority in Singapore. Show more