Pub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3004
M. Quayum, Saad Z. Hossain
In this interview, Bangladeshi Anglophone writer Saad Z. Hossain (1979–) addresses several important issues involving his works, worldview, and writing career. First, he explains when he began writing, what inspired him to write, why he chose to write in English, and whom he writes for. He also discusses his writing and reading habits, his favourite authors, how he negotiates between his seemingly opposite interests as a businessman and a writer, and his view of the present state of English writing in Bangladesh. Moreover, Hossain talks about his narrative techniques, how his fiction has evolved over the years, how he works out a plot from his multi-thread narrative, his predilection for characters over plot, and how he compares his experience of writing prose fiction in different forms: novels, novellas, and short stories. Finally, the author reflects on his themes, use of humour, view of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and what he is currently writing.
在这篇访谈中，孟加拉国英语作家萨阿德-Z-侯赛因（Saad Z. Hossain，1979-）谈到了涉及其作品、世界观和写作生涯的几个重要问题。首先，他解释了自己何时开始写作，是什么激发了他的写作灵感，为什么选择用英语写作，以及为谁写作。他还谈到了自己的写作和阅读习惯、最喜欢的作家、如何在商人和作家这两种看似截然相反的兴趣之间进行协商，以及他对孟加拉国英语写作现状的看法。此外，霍赛因还谈到了他的叙事技巧、他的小说多年来是如何演变的、他是如何从多线程叙事中构思情节的、他对人物而非情节的偏爱，以及他是如何比较不同形式的散文小说写作经验的：长篇小说、中篇小说和短篇小说。最后，作者回顾了他的主题、幽默的运用、对人工智能（AI）的看法，以及他目前正在写作的作品。
{"title":"A Writer of Hope, Humour, and Resistance: An Interview with Saad Z. Hossain","authors":"M. Quayum, Saad Z. Hossain","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3004","url":null,"abstract":"In this interview, Bangladeshi Anglophone writer Saad Z. Hossain (1979–) addresses several important issues involving his works, worldview, and writing career. First, he explains when he began writing, what inspired him to write, why he chose to write in English, and whom he writes for. He also discusses his writing and reading habits, his favourite authors, how he negotiates between his seemingly opposite interests as a businessman and a writer, and his view of the present state of English writing in Bangladesh. Moreover, Hossain talks about his narrative techniques, how his fiction has evolved over the years, how he works out a plot from his multi-thread narrative, his predilection for characters over plot, and how he compares his experience of writing prose fiction in different forms: novels, novellas, and short stories. Finally, the author reflects on his themes, use of humour, view of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and what he is currently writing.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139168909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3009
Anindita Das
.
.
{"title":"Vaasanthi, Breaking Free: A Novel","authors":"Anindita Das","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3009","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p>.</jats:p>","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"204 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139169121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3008
Preetinicha Barman
.
.
{"title":"Mitra Phukon (ed.), The Greatest Assamese Stories Ever Told","authors":"Preetinicha Barman","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.3008","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p>.</jats:p>","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"436 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139170538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.2995
Om Prakash Dwivedi
In the wake of rising precarity, the pressing question that confronts thinkers is how to formulate a new form of a social contract that recognises, legitmises, and promotes systems of social infrastructures. By focussing on Kavery Nambisan’s The Story That Must Note Be Told (2010), this article highlights the precarious class of people living in a slum area. The crux of Nambisan’s account is that few lives matter more than other lives, and few spaces need more supply of resources than others, and the task of government and corporate agencies is to render agential measures to the elite class. It is a precarious tale of a place where the vulnerability and death of the marginalised feed off the privileged class. In the light of the precarious conditions rendered by the neoliberal regime, this article analyses Martha Albertson Fineman’s theory of human vulnerability, underlining the urgency to recognise human dependency on social institutions inherently linked to their resilience and survival.
{"title":"Precarity and Resilience in Kavery Nambisan’s The Story That Must Not be Told","authors":"Om Prakash Dwivedi","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.2995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.2995","url":null,"abstract":"In the wake of rising precarity, the pressing question that confronts thinkers is how to formulate a new form of a social contract that recognises, legitmises, and promotes systems of social infrastructures. By focussing on Kavery Nambisan’s The Story That Must Note Be Told (2010), this article highlights the precarious class of people living in a slum area. The crux of Nambisan’s account is that few lives matter more than other lives, and few spaces need more supply of resources than others, and the task of government and corporate agencies is to render agential measures to the elite class. It is a precarious tale of a place where the vulnerability and death of the marginalised feed off the privileged class. In the light of the precarious conditions rendered by the neoliberal regime, this article analyses Martha Albertson Fineman’s theory of human vulnerability, underlining the urgency to recognise human dependency on social institutions inherently linked to their resilience and survival.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"37 31","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139171075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.2999
Nishat Atiya Shoilee
With five different plotlines over a prolonged course of sixty years in British Bengal and East Pakistan, Canadian-Bangladeshi writer Arif Anwar’s debut novel The Storm (2018) captures historical ethos through a series of micronarratives. An occupied Burma during WWII, a 1965 pre-Partition Calcutta, and a devastated Bhola after the 1970 cyclone — all these feature in this historiographic metafiction. Each character contributes as an independent narrator for the greater geopolitical mise-en-scènes of their times, rediscovering a forgotten past. This paper aims to identify the narrativised version of historicity that Anwar considers “authentic” in his novel. The findings propose a reciprocal commitment between narration and history on the basis of lived experiences or memories, phenomenological recurrences, and intersubjective surroundings.
{"title":"Narrativised Historicity in Arif Anwar’s The Storm","authors":"Nishat Atiya Shoilee","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.2999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i2.2999","url":null,"abstract":"With five different plotlines over a prolonged course of sixty years in British Bengal and East Pakistan, Canadian-Bangladeshi writer Arif Anwar’s debut novel The Storm (2018) captures historical ethos through a series of micronarratives. An occupied Burma during WWII, a 1965 pre-Partition Calcutta, and a devastated Bhola after the 1970 cyclone — all these feature in this historiographic metafiction. Each character contributes as an independent narrator for the greater geopolitical mise-en-scènes of their times, rediscovering a forgotten past. This paper aims to identify the narrativised version of historicity that Anwar considers “authentic” in his novel. The findings propose a reciprocal commitment between narration and history on the basis of lived experiences or memories, phenomenological recurrences, and intersubjective surroundings.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"252 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139169042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2792
Kazuo Ishiguro, Malcolm Bradbury, Winifred Holtby, Martin Amis, Ian Mc Ewan, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Jeanette Winterson
This article focuses on components of memory and identity and their thematic centrality in Kazuo Ishiguro’s two novels namely, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and The Remains of the Day (1988). Ishiguro explores the complexities of memory in his novels, where distortion, suppression, and unreliability serve to define an individual’s identity through memory. Memory is a literary trope that Ishiguro has used repeatedly and diversely to enrich both his characters and plots. By examining how memories inform identity, this paper seeks to understand how our memories can affect our sense of self, and how this can shape our identity. The paper proposes that memories are not just simple recollections of events but are also complex narratives that are constructed from various sources. It argues that the interpretations of our memories can have a powerful effect on our sense of self and our identity.
{"title":"Situating Kazuo Ishiguro Within the Realms of Memory and Identity","authors":"Kazuo Ishiguro, Malcolm Bradbury, Winifred Holtby, Martin Amis, Ian Mc Ewan, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Jeanette Winterson","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2792","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on components of memory and identity and their thematic centrality in Kazuo Ishiguro’s two novels namely, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and The Remains of the Day (1988). Ishiguro explores the complexities of memory in his novels, where distortion, suppression, and unreliability serve to define an individual’s identity through memory. Memory is a literary trope that Ishiguro has used repeatedly and diversely to enrich both his characters and plots. By examining how memories inform identity, this paper seeks to understand how our memories can affect our sense of self, and how this can shape our identity. The paper proposes that memories are not just simple recollections of events but are also complex narratives that are constructed from various sources. It argues that the interpretations of our memories can have a powerful effect on our sense of self and our identity.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139368390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2793
N. Noorashid
This paper analyses semiotic elements in Pengabdian, a Malay novel published in 1987 and written by the 2009 SEA award winning Bruneian writer, Norsiah Gapar. Three main themes of semiotics in relation to Islamic principles and values are highlighted in Pengabdian: submission to God, attitudes towards worldly affairs, and the issue of rights and possessions in Islam. Besides the inclusion of explicit sermonic discourse in the novel, semiotic elements are foregrounded to support the edification of Islam to the readers. Following the co-existence of semiotic symbols and sermonic discourse, which is in line with the Islamic requisite of Amar Ma’ruf wa Nahi anil Munkar (enjoining good and forbidding wrong), this essay raises the potential of Pengabdian as a piece of Islamic literature. It offers readers a new way to appreciate Pengabdian from a linguistic-literary perspective, as it also suggests the possibility of undertaking further studies on this acclaimed novel.
{"title":"Immediate Surroundings as Inspiration: A Semiotic Analysis of Religious Discourse in Norsiah Gapar’s Pengabdian","authors":"N. Noorashid","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2793","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2793","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyses semiotic elements in Pengabdian, a Malay novel published in 1987 and written by the 2009 SEA award winning Bruneian writer, Norsiah Gapar. Three main themes of semiotics in relation to Islamic principles and values are highlighted in Pengabdian: submission to God, attitudes towards worldly affairs, and the issue of rights and possessions in Islam. Besides the inclusion of explicit sermonic discourse in the novel, semiotic elements are foregrounded to support the edification of Islam to the readers. Following the co-existence of semiotic symbols and sermonic discourse, which is in line with the Islamic requisite of Amar Ma’ruf wa Nahi anil Munkar (enjoining good and forbidding wrong), this essay raises the potential of Pengabdian as a piece of Islamic literature. It offers readers a new way to appreciate Pengabdian from a linguistic-literary perspective, as it also suggests the possibility of undertaking further studies on this acclaimed novel.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139368489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2801
Bibhash Choudhury
.
.
{"title":"Margaret L. Pachuau (ed), Negotiating Culture: Writings from Mizoram","authors":"Bibhash Choudhury","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2801","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p>.</jats:p>","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139368564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2794
Khuda Gawah
Afghanistan, popularly known as the graveyard of empires, has long been a contested site in geopolitics. With the Taliban coming to power after its victory over the US, it has become more critical than ever to discuss how Afghanistan has been presented in the media. While Hollywood’s long history of Orientalist gaze particularly towards Muslim nations is apparent in its vilified representation of Afghans in films like Iron Man (2008), Red Sands (2009), 12 Strong (2018), and The Outpost (2020), Bollywood’s representations of Afghanistan have not been studied with similar critical parameters. With Bollywood exerting significant influence as one of the largest film industries in the world, it has become imperative for us to learn whether Afghanistan has been subject to the same Orientalist gaze. This paper examines two pre-9/11 Bollywood films Khuda Gawah (1991) and Dharmatma (1975) in order to better understand this issue.
{"title":"The Othering Bollywood: Nobleness and Savagery in Khuda Gawah and Dharmatma","authors":"Khuda Gawah","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2794","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2794","url":null,"abstract":"Afghanistan, popularly known as the graveyard of empires, has long been a contested site in geopolitics. With the Taliban coming to power after its victory over the US, it has become more critical than ever to discuss how Afghanistan has been presented in the media. While Hollywood’s long history of Orientalist gaze particularly towards Muslim nations is apparent in its vilified representation of Afghans in films like Iron Man (2008), Red Sands (2009), 12 Strong (2018), and The Outpost (2020), Bollywood’s representations of Afghanistan have not been studied with similar critical parameters. With Bollywood exerting significant influence as one of the largest film industries in the world, it has become imperative for us to learn whether Afghanistan has been subject to the same Orientalist gaze. This paper examines two pre-9/11 Bollywood films Khuda Gawah (1991) and Dharmatma (1975) in order to better understand this issue.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139368369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2790
Md. Mahmudul Hasan
Adhering to the demands of integrity and having research attitudes rooted in moral sensibilities are of paramount importance for academics, researchers, and writers. Publishing etiquette requires them to invest adequate time and energy in conducting research and writing manuscripts and thus to produce beneficial knowledge. Putting together a document hastily and avoiding the much-needed effort in research and writing lead to negative outcomes. The corrupt practice of plagiarism and the desire for recognition through fraudulent and duplicitous publications are marked by deliberate deceptiveness. It debases the plagiarists, stagnates their intellectual growth, and vitiates the academic environment. Highlighting this observation, in this essay I shall discuss some dimensions and significance of publishing etiquette. I shall argue that attitudes and behaviours of researchers and academic practitioners determine the quality of the words and works that they produce.
{"title":"Good Words, Corrupt Words, and Publishing Etiquette","authors":"Md. Mahmudul Hasan","doi":"10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v17i1.2790","url":null,"abstract":"Adhering to the demands of integrity and having research attitudes rooted in moral sensibilities are of paramount importance for academics, researchers, and writers. Publishing etiquette requires them to invest adequate time and energy in conducting research and writing manuscripts and thus to produce beneficial knowledge. Putting together a document hastily and avoiding the much-needed effort in research and writing lead to negative outcomes. The corrupt practice of plagiarism and the desire for recognition through fraudulent and duplicitous publications are marked by deliberate deceptiveness. It debases the plagiarists, stagnates their intellectual growth, and vitiates the academic environment. Highlighting this observation, in this essay I shall discuss some dimensions and significance of publishing etiquette. I shall argue that attitudes and behaviours of researchers and academic practitioners determine the quality of the words and works that they produce.","PeriodicalId":504252,"journal":{"name":"Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature","volume":"145 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139368439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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