Tuesday, January 30, 2007

KL International Literary Festival 2007-update



(Please wait for a moment for the video link to download). This page will be used for regular updates as we receive information. We will start with Malaysian writers.

Programme:

Dina Zaman Book Launch - I am Muslim. Dina Zaman's articles about being a Muslim in Malaysia in Malaysiakini.com spoke for and captured the imagination of many who, though had similar views were, for various reasons, not able to articulate them. Dina Zaman's two session during the Literary Festival is going to be popular. And maybe controversial. Dina goes to places few have dared to venture. These sessions are not to be missed.

As Dina states in her introduction, I am Muslim is a selfish journey of faith. Dina meets shamans, nationalists, moderates and gets into all sorts of scrapes, to discover what Islam means to Muslims in Malaysia. Heartbreaking, angry and downright funny, expect I AM to be a rollickin’ read.

Watch Dina Zaman's recent interview with Al Jazeera here.


Tash Aw's writing workshops (perhaps that is not entirely correct ... call this a master class - read on).

Tash will be running two writing worshops. For his two sessions he proposes to do two workshops entitled 'Beginnings' and 'Endings'. These sessions will take the writing of beginnings and endings of novels as their starting point but will be much more wide-ranging than that, moving on the explore various (general) themes in novel-writing that may be of interest to the participants. The workshops will be TEXT-BASED, meaning that he will be using short extracts from famous novels as examples/starting points. These can be simple photocopied and distributed at the start of the sessions.

The workshops are open to anyone, though those with a lively interest in reading (ie those who are able to engage with prose) will benefit the most. The sesssions are meant to be interactive: he won't be 'telling' anything how to write.

No comments: