The Literature of Brunei: History, Culture, and Challenges

by Ooi Keat Gin (Editor), Kathrina Mohd Daud (Editor)

Overview

This book presents an overview of the literature of Brunei, surveying literary traditions, innovations, and new approaches as well as historical and contemporary issues and challenges.

This book highlights the unique characteristics of Bruneian literature, including its approach to bilingualism - Brunei Malay and English - its historical intertwining with monarchs and myths, and how its emerging developments can be charted in the twenty-first century.

Gathering together the work of both established and emerging scholars of Bruneian literature and history, this book brings detailed scholarship to an English-speaking audience, some of which was originally written in the Malay language, and highlights a Bruneian perspective. In drawing out the peculiar traditions, innovations, and challenges of Bruneian literature, this collection of essays is not only original in concept but also a pioneering endeavour.

The Literature of Brunei will be of interest to researchers in World and Asian Literature, in particular Southeast Asian literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032616605
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/18/2025
Series:	Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ooi Keat Gin is a Professor of the Modern History of Brunei/Borneo at the Academy of Brunei Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei and Visiting Professor at the Korean Institute of ASEAN Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies, Busan, South Korea. With Victor T. King he co-edited Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Brunei (Routledge 2023) and co-authored The Handbook of Southeast Asian Studies: Pioneers and Critical Thinkers, Parts I & II (2024, Part I).

Kathrina Mohd Daud is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei. She was co-editor of The Southeast Asian Woman Writes Back: Gender, Identity and Nation in the Literatures of Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (2017) with Grace V. S. Chin, and her latest novel, The Witch Doctor’s Daughter (Epigram 2022) was longlisted for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize (EBFP).

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction; 1. The earliest Malay letters from Brunei; 2. Pengiran Indera Mahkota aka Pengiran Shahbandar Mohammad Salleh bin Pengiran Sharmayuda, author of Syair Rakis and Brunei’s foremost literary figure; 3. Syair Rakis and Nineteenth century Bruneian Sultanate: Prophecy, Reality and Economy; 4. The egg and chicken in Bruneian Malay Society: From folklore to present day food culture; 5. Burung garuda and burung serandit – A textual enquiry of avian culture in Brunei Darussalam; 6. Bruneian Women’s Writing as an Emergent Minor Literature in English; 7. Ethnic Oral Literature (Kèjhung) of the marginalized Dusunk; 8. The Temporal Mundane in Anglophone Chinese Diaspora Writing from Brunei Darussalam; 9. Bruneian drama: Between the local and the global; 10. (Re)governing Translation Industry in Brunei: A Case Study on Creative Writing; 11. A Comparative Analysis of the La Galigo and Syair Awang Semaun; 12. On the Lineage of Contemporary Bruneian Literature; Glossary; Index