Writing a New Society

Recent social and political upheaval in Malaysia has taken many analysts by surprise, but the stresses and fissures in Malay society have been vividly described in Malay novels since the early 1960s. Writing a New Society is the first extended study of the novel in Malay and is a groundbreaking study of the relationship between social change and literary practice. The book traces the emergence of the genre from the 1920s and, drawing on twenty-six of Malaysia’s best-known novels, argues that the form was developed as a vehicle for transforming Malay ideas about themselves and their society.