My Copy of Trois autres Malaisie has arrived!

 

My copy of Trois autres Malaisie  has arrived!  The whole process, from the initial contact by Editions GOPE to explore the possibility of translating Lovers andStrangers Revisited into French to my receiving this copy took about one year. 

Although the cover is the same, it’s not—it’s better (though it's not as sharp in jpeg, above).  But holding the books side by side, you'll see (and feel) the difference.  The cover is now glossy, which makes the colors appear more alive and the woman more real; her exposed eye seems even more mysterious.  The cover type is also bolder and stands out, though my name is smaller (on the spine, too).  The thickness is about the same, even though there are three less stories; the height is shorter.  Inside, other than the obvious language difference, you'll  notice another big difference.  There are ten illustrations from different artists and a hibiscus is used as a colophon (to denote breaks such as major scene changes). 

Also, in back, Editions GOPE, has added illustrations and a synopsis of several of their books, including Trois autres Thailande and Le Monde de Suzie Wong, the French translation of Richard Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong.  This is good; it means that in future books and in new editions of past books, Trois autres Malaisie will be added, too. There is also Trois autres Malaisie translator, Jerome Bouchaud’s Malaisie: Modernite et traditions en Asia du Sud-Est.

The stories are regrouped into three sections: The Malays, The Chinese, The Indian.  Since the majority of the characters in “Neighbors” are Chinese it’s placed at the beginning of the Chinese section.  Here is the table of contents (I added in the original titles—some I could guess at, most I could not)  

LA MALAISE…

Mat Salleh (Mat Salleh)

Les pierres saintes (Smooth Stones)

Le regard (The Stare)

Les vendredis (On Fridays)

Hari raya (Home for Hari Raya)

Symetrie (Symmetry)

Naufrage ( Only in Malaysia)

LA CHINOISE…

Les voisins (Neighbors)

A l’hotel de la gare (The Station Hotel)

Le guetteur (The Watcher)

Les amants anonymes (Lovers and Strangers)

ET L’INDIENNE…

Le futur avocat (The Future Barrister)

La chambre de grande soeur (Sister’s Room)

Teh-o a Kuala Lumpur (Teh-o in K.L.)

*Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, my collection of short stories set in Malaysia

**Update: Book orders for Trois autres Malaisie.   E-book orders.  Or recommend it to your friends, especially those who would like to know more about Malaysia or have an interest in Southeast Asia.

  

Here's a link to the intro and excerpts, and to four reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie in eurasie.net, Malaisie.org, easyvoyage.com, and Petit Futé mag.

***Here’s an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie and my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching, and my involvement in a French documentary for Arte (June 2017) on The Sensual Malaysia of Somerset Maugham.

Introduction and Excerpts for Trois autres Malaisie

228 pages, 13x19 cm, ouvrage illustré.

Trois autres Malaisie is printed and now available!  Editions GOPE has just provided me the introduction to Trois autres Malaisie, written by the translator, Jerome Bouchaud, as well as the excerpts to four of the stories.

Orders for Trois autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, a collection of short stories set in Malaysia and winner of 2009 Popular-The Star Reader's Choice Award, can now be made at:

           

ACHETEZ TROIS AUTRES MALAISIES, 17.90  € (-5%, LIVRAISON GRATUITE)

           

           

           

           

           

           

Click on the middle book will link you to the introduction and excerpts of four of the stories. Editions GOPE is offering free shipping to anywhere in the world and 5% discount.  The books are now available.

Again, please inform others who speak French, even as a second or third language (or are learning French), and who has an interest in Malaysia or would like to know more about it.  Think of your family and friends back home or those living overseas, even those who might have been here years ago or are thinking about visiting someday.  Or send them a copy of Trois autres Malaisie as a present!  Thank you!

*Update: Here's a link to the intro and excerpts, and links to four reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie in eurasie.net, Malaisie.org, easy voyage.com, and Petit Futé mag.


**Update: Book orders for Trois autres Malaisie.   E-book orders.  Or recommend it to your friends, especially those who would like to know more about Malaysia or have an interest in Southeast Asia.

 

***Here’s an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie and my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching, and my involvement in a French documentary for Arte (June 2017) on The Sensual Malaysia of Somerset Maugham.

*Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, my collection of short stories set in Malaysia.

La Malaisie vue de l'intérieur avec 14 nouvelles de Robert Raymer.

Advance orders for Trois autres Malaisie!

228 pages, 13x19 cm, ouvrage illustré.

Orders for Trois autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, a collection of short stories set in Malaysia and winner of 2009 Popular-The Star Reader's Choice Award, can now be made at:

   

ACHETEZ TROIS AUTRES MALAISIES, 17.90  € (-5%, LIVRAISON GRATUITE)

   

   
   
   
   
   

   

*Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, my collection of short stories set in Malaysia

**Update: Book orders for Trois autres Malaisie.   E-book orders.  Or recommend it to your friends, especially those who would like to know more about Malaysia or have an interest in Southeast Asia.

  

Here's a link to the intro and excerpts, and to four reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie in eurasie.net, Malaisie.org, easyvoyage.com, and Petit Futé mag.

***Here’s an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie and my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching, and my involvement in a French documentary for Arte (June 2017) on The Sensual Malaysia of Somerset Maugham.
 

La Malaisie vue de l'intérieur avec 14 nouvelles de Robert Raymer

Creative Writing Workshop—Two in Kota Kinabalu

Just back from two back-to-back workshops in Kota Kinabalu (Sabah, Borneo), one a six-hour workshop for Universiti Malaysia Sabah (above) and then a four-hour workshop organized by the KK Theatre Group, SPArKS (see below).

Mark Storey presents a gift to an exhausted Robert Raymer after
6-hour workshop at UMS

The first workshop at UMS, we started out with 30 academic lecturers and tutors, including someone who recognized me from Unimas, a former colleague from USM, and a fellow expat writer, Mark Storey, who organized the event.   

In the second workshop, the ages ran from thirteen to mid-sixties, from secondary students to published authors, including fellow MPH writer, Tina Kisil, author of Footprints in the Paddy Field.  One participant flew in from Miri, one was the daughter of one of the UMS staff that I taught the previous day, and another, Farida, was the mother of a student I taught at USM years ago. In fact, her enthusiasm for bringing a creative writing workshop to KK brought both UMS (Mark) and SPArKS (Jude Day) aboard.  Suddenly I’m in KK conducting not one but two workshops to two very different groups.

Robert Raymer demonstrating the use of clustering.

Also attending the second workshop were two students from IPGK Gaya and three UMS students who were taking creative writing in Malay. They told me how different my approach was from the way they were being taught and how easily they can apply my ideas to generate their own ideas.  At UMS, they’re getting mostly theory but they don’t know what to write, or where to even start!  

I take the opposite approach by leaving the theory where it belongs in the textbooks (see “Tree Methodology”  from Tropical Affairs) and showing them some useful pre-writing techniques that actually work in the real world.  We also use sensory details and 5-Ws as prompts that flood them with even more ideas.  Within minutes they’re eager to write.  Several times, after getting them started, I had to stop them, so we could move on, so I could introduce more story-starter ideas! The important thing is they got started and later they can finish up what they began.

The workshops went so well in fact, it looks like I’ll be back to KK in August for another related workshop and possibly a follow up in November. The one in August, I will be creating two longer writing sessions (one for first-person non-fiction, the other for fiction) so they can produce two finished samples to add to what they’ve already started and hopefully completed. (My final exams at USM were one hour and I was always amazed what they came up with after investing some of their precious time with pre-writing).  Then a follow-up workshop (after they’ve had time to rewrite and polish) so I can critique their opening pages from one of those samples, as I did for the 2009 MPH Short Story Awards when I was one of their judges.  By limiting the size of the workshop to 20-25, we can devote 10 minutes for each participant.

When I did this in Kuching '09, this worked wonderfully. They all benefited no matter whose story we were discussing since the others made similar mistakes in their own stories.  (It’s easier to find mistakes in someone else’s story than your own!) 

When I tried this in Miri '09 (maybe because of all of the advance publicity), it wasn’t as effective because many of the writers had sent in stories via their friends or even their moms, so they weren’t even present for their own feedback, nor could they benefit from the feedback for the other stories! Other writers took advantage of the theater style seating and passed down multiple stories.  One submitted four!  I was furious when I found out later what was going on.  It was so unfair to the writers who were present with their own short stories because we couldn’t get to them all.  This time around, as I did in Kuching, where we sat around one long table, I will personally collect each story from each writer, so everyone present benefits.

When I put on my judging and editor’s hat (as I did briefly in KK), I can show them what is holding back their writing (be it grammar, organization, style, including word choices, repetition, and using tentative or trite expressions), so they, and all those who attend, can take their writing to the next level. Here are the judging tips that I posted for the MPH contest and workshop, the post-contest comments and a little inspiration to prove them wrong, and the story behind the story links, whereby I blogged about the significant changes that I made in the Lovers and Strangers Revisited stories that led to their various publications (80, so far, in 12 countries!)

A one-off workshop—although inspiring and motivating for all—is rarely enough.  One writer in Kuching, was so inspired by one of my workshops at Unimas, he turned his ideas into five hundred page book!  (It still has a way to go, but he sure got off to a great start!)  For others, they’ll eventually get around to doing some writing.  We all know about good intentions, but life and work often gets in the way.  The real learning comes from the actual writing. The doing!

      —Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

*One of the IPGK Gaya students blogged about the workshop. (Yes, our pictures came from the same source, but he added more!)  So did the gentleman from Miri.  Here's Tina's blog about the same event.

**Here is the follow up KK workshop in August'11.  And the third KK workshop 22 October '11

***Here's my workshop with Malaysian Nurses Association and International Tuition School in Kuching.

Here's a blog link about being interviewed on TV for Kuppa Kopi.  If you wish to contact me for a creative writing workshop at your school (for your staff or students or both) or your association, I can be reached at robert@borneoexpatwriter.com  



******Announcement latest workshops:  Writing Your Life Stories Workshop—Kuching! 23 June 2012 (with links to other workshops and writing tips!) and also a workshop in KK on 17 June 2012! 

If you are interested to bring one of my writing workshops to your organizations or association in Sabah/Sarawak/West Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei please contact me at robert@borneoexpatwriter.com  Thank you.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

  

Expatriate Lifestyle - Febrary 2010 - just got it, better late than...

 

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I