Writing a New Society
Subtitle: Social Change Through the Novel in Malay (Southeast Asia Publications Series)
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: April 15, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 492
ISBN-13: 9780824823047
Subjects: Cultural studies; Novels, other prose & writers: from c 1900 -; Sociology, Social Studies; Oceanic Literature; Literary Criticism; Literature And Society; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Oceanic & Polynesian languages; Malaysia; Asian - General; Australian & Oceanian; Social change; 20th century; History; History and criticism; Indonesia; Malay fiction
First sentence: During the course of the twentieth century Malaya has become Malaysia and the country has been transformed from a resource producing colony to a self-governing, industrialised, high-profile member of the rapidly expanding regional grouping of Southeast As
Description: "Writing a New Society is the first extended study of the novel in Malay and is a groundbreaking study of the relationship between social change and literary practice. The book traces the emergence of the genre from the 1920s and, drawing on 26 of Malaysia's best-known novels, argues that the form was developed as a vehicle for transforming Malay ideas about themselves and their society.

Virginia Hooker focuses on the underlying anxiety about racial identity, which underpins much of Malay writing and examines how ethnic identity is constructed and expressed."--BOOK JACKET.