We do have a lot of talented writers and cartoonists in Malaysia. So I do try to support them as much as I can.
This KL Noir: White is part 2 of the KL Noir Series (it comes in Red, White Blue and Yellow). It’s a collection of short stories about Malaysia’s capital city’s dark side. It is published by Fixi Novo which is an imprint of Buku Fixi. But what really captivated me about this book series is not so much about the contents of the book but the what is written on the 2nd page – The FIXI NOVO manifesto. This is what it says:
- We believe that omputih/gwailoh-speak is a Malaysian language.
- We use American spelling. This is because we are more influenced by Hollywood than the House of Windsor.
- We publish stories about the urban reality of Malaysia. If you want to share your grandmother’s World War 2 stories, send ‘ em elsewhere and you might even win the Booker Prize.
- We specialize in pulp fiction, because crime, horror, sci-fi and so on turn us on.
- We will not use italics for non-American/non-English terms. This is because those words are not foreign to a Malaysian audience. So we will not have “They had nasi lemak and went back to kongkek” but rather “They had nasi lemak and went back to kongkek.” Nasi lemak and kongkek are some of the pleasures if Malaysian life that should be celebrated without apology; italics are a form of apology.
- We publish novels and short-story anthologies. We don’t publish poetry; we like making money.
- The existing Malaysian books that come closest to what we wanna do: Devil’s Place by Brian Gomez; and the Inspector Mislan crime novels by Rozlan Mohd Noor. Look for them!
- We publish books with the same print run and the same price as those of our parent company, Buku Fixi. So a book of about 300 pages will sell at RM20. This is because we wanna reach out to the young, the sengkek and the kiam siap.
See, so talented (and funny) they really are.
Bimbo
