Rewriting Lovers and Strangers Revisited

                                                     

Every few years I get this urge to rewrite the 17 stories from Lovers and Strangers Revisit­ed.  No doubt that seems silly and a waste of time for most writers since the book has already been published.  Had I not done so, it wouldn't been published a second or a third time!  Originally published in Singapore as Lovers and Strangers (Heinemann Asia,1993, Writ­ing in Asia Series), I revisited the stories in 2005 when a Malaysian lecturer requested to use the collec­tion for a course on Malaysia and Singapore literature.  The book—after consulting with an editor and going back to the original inspiration for each story, vis­it­­ing many of the ori­gin­al settings and over­hauling the stories, adding new scenes, back-stories, and endings—was repub­lish­ed as Lovers and Strangers Revisited (Silver­fish Books).

                                                   

In 2008, a third revised ver­sion with two additional stories was published by MPH, which I wrote about in a blog about publishing in Malaysia and Singapore, that later won the 2009 Popular-The Star Reader’s Choice Awards and was translated into French.  To complement the MPH edition, I wrote a blog series, The Story Behind the Story, about the devel­op­ment and the sig­nif­i­­cant changes of each story that led to their various mag­azine/lit­erary journal publica­tions—often used as writ­ing/teaching aids in schools, colleges, and uni­ver­sities.  The main char­acter from the story “Neigh­bors”  was featured by an expat teacher in the New Straits Times, “Are You Mrs. Koh?” 

So why revise the stories again?  I’ve always felt that Lovers and Strangers Revisited, based on its publishing track record, deserves a wider audience both inside and outside of Ma­lay­sia/Singapore.  For example, the collection is still available in French by Editions GOPE as Trois autres Malaisie.  In fact, the publisher will be exhibiting the collection along with his other Malaysian titles at a French book fair in Kuala Lumpur on 24 March 2024, which should translate into more sales!.

                                                          

So far, thanks to rewriting those published stories, the individual stories have been published 83 times in 12 coun­tries (12 stories in USA and UK); taught in Malaysian secondary school literature for six years (“Neigh­bors”), as well as in Cana­da and USA (Ohio University); and several stories have been taught for years in various Ma­lay­sian universities and private col­leges.  Film stu­dents at Ohio Univer­sity found the original collection in their library, came to Malay­sia, and filmed, “Home for Hari Raya.”  

Maybe because of this persistent belief that these stories (individually and as a col­lec­tion) are still relevant—they are still being taught in Malaysia as of May 2023 and are still being published in the USA (“The Stare” appeared in Thema, Spring 2021,and "On Fridays" will be out in 2025).  As I began editing again (clarifying details, cutting need­less words or phrases, tightening the writing), I could see significant improvements in each story.

Also, the process feels like a trip down memory lane, both as a writer and as an expatriate living in Malay­sia.  “Mat Salleh,” for example, was my first published story, a non­fiction short story, 28 January 1986 (New Straits Times) and my first published story in the UK (My Weekly).  "Teh-O in K.L." was my first published short story is USA (Aim). The other stories, all published but one, are all loosely based on my early ex­peri­ences or on my ob­­ser­va­tions of kam­pong and modern-day life in Malaysia.  Not all the memories are good—a failed mar­riage for me (“Dark Blue Threads”) and a neighbor com­mitting suicide (“Neighbors”); nevertheless, these stories are my Malaysian roots, so to speak, having lived in Penang as an expatriate for twen­ty-one years and taught creative writing at USM for ten years, before moving to Sarawak to grow new roots.

The real payoff, of course, is that these revised stories now have a chance for future publica­tions in the US or UK or Australia or elsewhere—the main reason I do it.  Or the collection, fingers crossed, is republish­ed to a wider audience.  Or the play that I added as a bonus, “One Drink Too Many,” a comedy adapted from the short story, “Neigh­bors,” is produced in Malaysia or Singapore.  Preferably, all three!

What helps me to keep the faith in Lovers and Strangers Revisited (and the individual stories) is rereading the MPH back-of-the-book reviews and other review snippets that I include while marketing the collection to agents and other publishers: 

MPH Publisher’s synopsis and reviews from the back of the book:

In this collection of 17 stories, Robert Raymer portrays the traditional in modernity, the unexpected in relationships both familiar and strange, the recurring theme of race even as contemporary Malaysia finds ways to understand its multicultural milieu.

In the title story, a selfish writer gets more than he bargained for when two former lovers haunt him in more ways than one. In another story, a man's loneliness turns into obses­sion when he shares a taxi ride with a Malay woman. A Clark Gable lookalike is a bar­rister wannabe with a shocking secret and gossipy neighbours reveal more about them­selves than the man who commits suicide. Elsewhere, expats cross the border to Had Yai to experience a good bargain in the Thai flesh trade before going home to their wives in America.

In this republished edition of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Raymer's snapshots of scenes from various walks of life provide an insider-outsider view on love, family and culture, and urges a second look at ourselves in the mirror of self-awareness.

Praise for Lovers and Strangers Revisited

'Raymer not only writes from his own viewpoint as a foreigner and observer, but also delves into the minds of desperate Malay woman, a young Indian girl, an adulterous Chinese couple, and an old Chinese man who survived the Japanese occupation... He has an uncanny ability to hold a mirror up to the people of his adopted country, not as a for­eigner but as one of us. His stories are full of personalities that you know, you work with them, or live next door to them, or eavesdrop on them at the kopi tiam.' The Borneo Post

'This account ("On Fridays") of a crammed ride with strangers in a taxi may well stand as a metaphor of Raymer's own experience of living among Malaysians... He imbues each of the characters in his stories with a realistic, genuinely believable voice even as he tempers it with the valuable perspective of an observer.' New Straits Times

'Raymer gives a lushly and rich and multi-layered rendition of the Malaysian way of life as colored and influenced by his own experiences from his twenty years as an expat here... These stories are some of the few authentic portrayals of the inner workings and inner plays of the average Malaysian's life in all of its robustness and unique cultural settings.' The Expat

A little ego boost for sure, something all writers need now and then.  Also, it’s good to touch base, like stretching before exercising.  Awfully glad I rewrote those stories.  Now that 2023 is over (having rewritten eight books—six novels and two collections of stories—in two years), I’m ready to embark on new writing projects for 2024 and beyond... 

—Borneo Expat Writer

 My interviews with other Malaysian writers:

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, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 

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

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.

 

“The Musical Tree” published in French!

“The Musical Tree” was just published in French, on editions GOPE website.  Editions GOPE is my French publisher for Trois Autres Malaisie, the French translation of Lovers and Strangers Revisited.  They are doing a series of short pieces by their authors on Southeast Asia, their specialty.

“The Musical Tree” is an excerpt from my short story, “Following the Cat” which was published in Thema in the USA and Off the Edge in Malaysia, which itself is an excerpt from my Penang novel, A Perfect Day for an Expat Exit, a finalist in the 2017 and 2016 Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Awards.  

Here is the English version of “The Musical Tree”:

          We stopped at a shady area serviced by several hawker stalls and drank from coconuts. A dozen cats lay around in idle repose while wait­ing for their next meal.  A white cat climbed onto a chair vacated by two Malays and put its paws on the table to sur­vey the left­overs.  A mewing gray kitten waiting below asked it to hurry up.

          A strange looking tree caught my attention.  Then I realized it wasn’t a tree, but a com­posite of two trees.  The one on the inside was old with a dark knotted trunk, while wrapped around it was a younger tree with light, smooth bark.  The upper branches of the two trees were so inter­twined it was difficult to distin­guish one from the other. 

          I pointed it out to Jeya, who was eleven years old and had befriended me.  I asked her about it.

          “Oh that.  That is a musical tree,” replied Jeya.

          “A what?”

          “A musical tree.”  She finished her coconut and said, “Come!”  

          She led me to the tree and asked me to sit on the seawall beneath it. 

          “Now listen.”  She cupped her ear.  “Hear it?”

          Dozens, if not hundreds, of birds were singing all at once, a symphony in full swing.  I closed my eyes as I listened to the magic.

          “You can hear them, but you cannot see them, am I right or not?”

The foliage was so dark and dense, it was impossible to see anything.

          “It must drive all the cats crazy,” I said.

          “Cats are crazy,” replied Jeya, and laughed.  “Every day the musical tree comes alive.  Every day a free concert.”

          Two of Jeya’s classmates waved as they passed by.  She scampered off to join them.

          Already I was missing Jeya’s company….The longer I sat under the tree listening to the birds, the lonelier I became….A young Malay couple walked by holding hands.  The boy said some­thing to the girl and she boxed him on the arm.  He grabbed his arm and feigned pain.  Both of them laughed.  She hit him again.  They were young and in love, just starting out in life.  In com­pari­son, I felt old—not yet thirty but already facing divorce.

          A Chinese derelict reeking of alcohol and urine sauntered over, uninvited.  He sat down beside me and eyed the driftwood between us.  I tried to ignore him, expecting the dere­lict to hit me up for money.  Why were children so giving, and adults, demanding?

          “You like the birdies?”  He pointed up at the tree.  “The birdies sing for themselves, you know.  They sing ‘cause it makes them happy.  If only people could sing without needing some­­­­­­­­­­­one to hear them they might be happy, too.”

          A black cat stirred.  It paused in mid-stretch to look at me.  The cat began to walk away.  Again it paused as if to see if I were coming.  I excused myself from the derelict and fol­lowed the cat.  It seemed to know where it was going.  For now that was good enough for me.

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For those who read French:  Book orders for Trois autres Malaisie.    E-book orders. 

  

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 also a link to my Maugham and Me series (in English)  that I wrote when asked to take part in a French documentary on Somerset Maugham which was recently aired on the Franco-German cultural channel Arte on 5 June 2017 and still can be viewed here for another week or so before Arte takes it down from their website...

          —Borneo Expat Writer

Suzi Wong and the Spirits, a Graphic Novel in English

Editions GOPE, a French publisher who does books with an Asian flavour, has launched a graphic novel in English, Suzi Wong and the Spirits.

Suzy Wong and the Spirits

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Born in Hong Kong on the fifteenth day of the fourth lunar month in the year of the Tiger, Suzy might be an incarnation of Chang’e, the Moon Goddess. All she knows for sure is that since her birth, she has been protected by three age-old invisible and mischievous spirits: Godmother Qing Yi, learned Godfather Wen Chou and rough Uncle Jia Zi. As a child Suzy was spoiled rotten by everybody at the brothel managed by her grandmother Wong Su Xi, who had once been famous under the name of Suzie Wong. Our Suzy had a blissful childhood until a mysterious fire killed her mother and destroyed the floating brothel. Sent away to a boarding school, Suzy found she had a gift for feng shui. After graduating summa cum laude, she decided to reconcile with her six uncles and aunts. It would not be easy; they were scattered all over the globe, and each of them involved in either a sleazy business, a dark occult science, or both. But what really happened that fateful night? What drove the Wong family into exile? Will Suzy dare to return to her roots in Hong Kong, in the Aberdeen harbour, where Grandma Su Xi, abandoned by her family and only a shadow of her former self, is waiting?

Virginie Broquet is a French artist who writes and draws comic books and travel sketchbooks. She also works for the press, as well as for the advertising and fashion industries. She has been awarded a prize at the prestigious Angoulême festival, the second-largest comics festival in the world.

Steve Rosse (English text) has been a journalist and editor in Asia and the United States. 

Suzy Wong and the Spirits is a graphic novel for adults dedicated with love to some of Asia’s most fascinating cities. It is a fusion between an artist’s very personal travel sketchbook and a comic book. Giving free reign to her imagination, it is the author’s hope that the work is still firmly grounded in the sensibility of real life.  
 
The graphic novel will appeal to women/art/erotica lovers...For more information, excerpts and orders please go here.

Steve Rosse is also the author of Trois Autres Thailande, a collection of short stories, part of the Southeast Asia series that includes Trois Autres Malaisie, the French translation of Loversand Strangers Revisited. 

Previously, Editions GOPE gave new life to Richard Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong by launching a new revised, unabridged French translation.  Chapter two, for those of us familiar with Malaysia, takes place in Malaya, in a rubber plantation.  The World of Suzie Wong was not only an international best seller, it ran for many years as a play on Broadway and in London, and the movie version won Nancy Kwan a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in the role of Suzie.

 
And now the Suzie Wong legend continues through Suzy Wong and the Spirits.

For more information, excerpts and orders please go here. 

  --BorneoExpatWriter

             

*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.

Here the link for Trois autres Malaisie.

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.

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 

Lovers and Strangers Revisited - 20 Years

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 20^th 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.

14 – On Fridays
8 – Neighbors/Aftermath
7 – Teh-O in KL
7 – Sister’s Room
7 – The Future Barrister
6 – Dark Blue Thread/The Watermark
5 – Waiting
4 – The Station Hotel/Joking
4 – Smooth Stones
4 – Symmetry
5 – *The Stare (added to Silverfish version, replacing “Moments”)
3 – Only in Malaysia (added to MPH version)
3 – Transactions in Thai (added to MPH version)
2 – Home for Hari Raya (and also filmed by Ohio University)
2 – Mat Salleh
1 – Lovers and Strangers
0 – Watcher (blogged it)
1 – *Moments (dropped after original Lovers and Strangers collection)
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 21^st year, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.
          —Borneo Expat Writer

*Update: Rewriting Lovers and Strangers Revisited

                    

                                        And: Trust the Novel Writing (and rewriting) Process. 

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.

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