COMMENT | Addressing 'sensitive topics' in Malaysian literature

COMMENT | Literature can be an uneasy field, especially when it comes to sensitive topics.

Of these, May 13th looms significantly over our collective memory, maintaining a prominent position over the other upheavals of that fraught decade and the one to come.

Some time ago, I came across Hanna Alkaf’s The Weight of Our Sky, set against the backdrop of the riots.

Nearly 50 years on, it now seemed more permissible to begin dissecting its traumatic effects, even if the government remained silent on the actual anniversary of the occasion.

It appeared that there was not much in the way of “truth and reconciliation”, at least not officially.

But this also raised the question of the literary atmosphere in the immediate aftermath of 1969, and the state of high paranoia that characterised the decade to come.

The subject of May 13th, among other things, came up in a conversation...