Near the end of 2013 a friend from Penang sent me a
Christmas card and mentioned that she was teaching my short story “Mat Salleh” from
my collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited
for her reading class at UiTM. I
then realized that 2013 was the 20th anniversary of the original
publication of Lovers and Strangers (Heinemann
Asia, 1993). Although I’m posting this a
little late, I have a strong feeling I haven’t heard the end of these stories
for years to come.
“Mat Salleh” was the first short story from the collection published in The New Straits Times. I sold
it again a few months later to My Weekly in the UK, and then "The Future Barrister" won third prize in the 1988 Star contest and "Sister's Room" third place in a contest in the US. I knew I was onto
something. The 17 short stories set mostly in Malaysia
have so far been published 83 times in twelve countries, the collection won the
2009 Popular-The Star Reader’s Choice Award and has been translated into French. (Previously, three stories had been
translated into Japanese.)
In 2005, a colleague at Universiti Sains
Malaysia where I taught creative writing informed me that he was not only teaching
my story “On Fridays” in his post colonial course on Singaporean and Malaysian
Literature but also planning to teach the collection in the following
semester. Since the book had gone out of
print, I contacted Silverfish Books (I was the editor for their Silverfish New
Writing 4) and they agreed to re-publish the book.
Having revised the stories numerous
times since its initial publishing, I wanted something more; so I revisited (and overhauled) each story—adding new
openings, new endings, new back stories, even doubling several stories in
length, which I wrote about in the introduction and then added the word ‘revisited’ to the title.
The first book launch in 1993 was organized
by Penang Players (I was the stage manager for several productions and critiqued many of their plays prior to their performance.) Penang Players not only sponsored the book
launch they also read extracts from four stories and did a delightful play
reading of One Drink Too Many, a comedy
that I wrote based on the short story “Neighbours”, thus turning a simple book
launch into a literary event attended by over 100 people.
In 2007, after moving to
Sarawak, the Malaysian part of Borneo, I encountered some distribution
problems, so I agreed to buy out the last of the stock from Silverfish and
switched publishers to MPH (2008), followed by another round of editing and
adding two stories. I also
created the blog series, The Story Behind the Story, for each of the 17 stories, separating fact from
fiction and noting the significant changes that led to their various publications.
Here is the publication breakdown by story with a link to each The Story Behind the Story, except for "Moments," dropped for the revisited collection. *Updated: the total published stories now stand at 83.
“Neighbours” (about neighbors gossiping over
a neighbor’s suicide) was then selected by the Malaysian Education Ministry to
be part of the sixth cycle of reading texts for SPM literature for Form 5 students for
2008-2010. Three times it has been renewed and
will be be taught in selected schools through 2015. The Malaysian English
Language Teaching Association (MELTA) also had an online thread for
“Neighbours” with over 20,500 hits and 30 pages of comments (around 290) before
they archived it then took it down. Denis Harry even wrote an article for the New Straits Times about the story’s main
character, a busybody, titled, “Are You Mrs. Koh?”
Over the years many students have
contacted me about that story via my website or facebook. When I mentioned to one student whose class was
adapting “Neighbours” into a play that I would be attending the Popular
Bookfest in Kuala Lumpur the following week for Tropical Affairs, nominated for the 2010 Reader’s
Choice Award, her teacher, Christina Chan organized a field
trip bringing about a dozen students to meet me. She said it was a rare opportunity for
students in Malaysia to meet the writer of a story that they were currently
studying (most had either passed away or lived overseas).
 |
| Robert Raymer with Christina Tan and her students at Bookfest 2010 |
In addition to the collection itself (stories from the
original collection were first taught at a high school in Canada), nine stories that
I know of have been taught numerous times at several universities and private
colleges throughout Malaysia (along with The Story Behind the Story, a handy
aide for both teachers and students I’ve since learned). In 2012, two of the stories “Mat Salleh” and
“Home for Hari Raya” were even taught in the U.S. at Ohio University in their Southeast Asia Studies program (where I had the
honor to skype with the students)
.
The Lovers
and Strangers collection has been instrumental in other aspects of my
life. In fact, it helped me to land my
first teaching job at Universiti of Sains Malaysia where for six years I taught
two courses on writing and then created a new course on creative writing that I
taught for four years before introducing the materials to Universiti of
Malaysia Sarawak and taught it there for another three years. (I had used Lovers and Strangers Revisited as a
calling card while giving a creative writing workshop for MELTA in Kuching.)
Back in 2006 the collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited (and unfortunately the
author) was even psychoanalyzed by a Malaysian academic at a short story
collection conference in the UK. As a
writer, it’s imperative to develop a thick skin; it also comes in handy for
reviews. Thanks to LSR, I’ve been interviewed several
times in magazines, newspapers, and
online. I was even put on national TV along with my friend Georgette Tan, who
earlier had given me a nice review in The
Borneo Post. Together we appeared on
Kuppa Kopi with Sharnaz Sabera.
 |
| Georgette Tan, Robert Raymer and Sharnaz Sabera |
In 2007, in reaction to a blog post by the Malaysian
author Lydia Teh about publishing books in Malaysia, I posted a rather lengthy comment based on my
experiences of publishing this collection in both countries, then I used it as the first posting for my own blog, Borneo Expat Writer. Then in 2009, as part of publicity for LSR, I
had been asked to write a short story for Going
Places, Malaysia Airlines in-flight magazine for their August Merdeka (Independence) edition along with
Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim, both successful authors in Malaysia whom I had yet
to meet.
Accepting the challenge, I
quickly came up with an idea and an opening for “Merdeka Miracle”.
The three of us furiously sent emails back and forth between Kuching, Kuala
Lumpur and Paris and London (where Tunku was travelling with his family) to
craft a first draft and then revised it daily, about twenty times, to meet the tight
deadline. Later, at the same K.L. Bookfest where I met the students and their teacher, I finally got to meet Lydia Teh.
 |
| Lydia Teh and Robert Raymer and "The Merdeka Miracle" |
I’m sure the success and the publicity
surrounding Lovers and Strangers
Revisited, which had just won the Popular Reader’s Choice Award, was
largely responsible for me being named one of “50 Expatriates You Should Know” by Expatriate
Lifestyle (January 2010)—quite an honor since most of the other expats were
diplomats, celebrities, or leaders in their industry and mostly living in Kuala
Lumpur, while I taught creative writing, gave workshops, and wrote books in
Sarawak.
 |
| Robert Raymer standing
between nominated writers Yvonne Lee and Adeline Loh. |
In 2011 Editions GOPE translated Lovers and Strangers Revisited into
French and published it as Trois autres Malaisie, which means "Three Other Malaysia". Then Ohio University School of Arts,
Media & Studies turned my story “Home for Hari Raya” into a film, shot in Malaysia in December 2012/January 2013.
The 24-minute film can now be seen on YouTube.
Twenty years has gone by
quickly, but the stories in that original Lovers and
Strangers collection have come a long way since 1993. And for 2014, its
21st year, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.
—Borneo Expat Writer
*Update: Rewriting Lovers and Strangers Revisited
Here are links to
four of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:
Ivy
Ngeow author of Cry
of the Flying Rhino, winner
of the 2016 Proverse Prize.
Plus:
It’s time again for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.
At stake is the $50,000 Grand Prize, plus four $15,000 First Prizes and Amazon
Publishing Contracts.
