Reading the region's Darlings

Hello friends, especially the new ones joining us for the first time this week!

Today is a very special piece from one of my fave writers/translators/friends, Julia Winterflood. She’s one of those people that when they recommend something to you, you get on to it straight away (and then pass on the good word).

It’s only fitting then that she is here to share with us the brilliant work from an Australian literary magazine which is determined to showcase the best and brightest from around the region.

As you’ll see reading on, Indonesia and Malaysia have both featured so far but the Philippines is up next. Please forward this far and wide to talented Filipino friends, I can’t wait to see what comes up!

Here’s your week of reading sorted.

Erin Cook

Illustration: Guy Shield (c/o Kill Your Darlings)

One of Australia’s leading arts and culture magazines, Kill Your Darlings (KYD), wants its readers to know about petai, pongal, air bandung and bak kut teh. 

It also wants readers to know about Malaysia’s current political upheaval, the multiplicity of cultures and languages that make up Malaysian identity, and the role of faith and feminism as an Indonesian Muslim. Why? “Considering where Australia is in the world geographically,” said KYD’s editor Alan Vaarwerk, “the number of Asia-Pacific authors published here is nowhere near enough.” 

But this is changing. “Local publishers are starting to pay attention. I’m thinking of Indonesian authors like Norman Erikson Pasaribu [Giramondo] and Intan Paramaditha [Brow Books and Penguin Books Australia], and Thai author Duanwad Pimwana [Brow Books].” Vaarwerk also pointed to the Asia-focused editions of Westerly Magazine, Mascara Literary Review and Southerly Journal, as well as Asian-Australian arts and culture magazines Liminal and Peril. “Inroads are being made, and that’s something we find interesting at KYD, playing a small part in that.” 

Beginning life as a print quarterly in 2010, KYD published its first Indonesia Showcase in 2017, in partnership with Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (UWRF). “We still get some great readership on those pieces, especially Eliza Vitri Handayani’s essay,” Vaarwerk enthused. A second Indonesia Showcase, again in partnership with UWRF, followed two years later. 

Last month KYD unveiled its first Malaysia Showcase, in partnership with Monash University. “We were keeping our expectations low — it’s a pandemic and everyone’s distracted — but we were blown away [by the response],” Vaarwerk said.

In his editor’s note he wrote that the showcase contains “thoughtful critiques of a country that prides itself on its ethnic diversity but still struggles with racism, cultural imperialism and the legacy of colonialism.” In the lead feature, Australian journalist of Malaysian heritage Jarni Blakkarly analyses two years of extreme turbulence in Malaysian politics, “largely ignored by Australian media but which puts our country’s recent leadership squabbles to shame.” Jho Low > ScoMo indeed. 

A remarkable untangling of the labyrinthine plot in plain English, “The Rise and Fall of Mahathir Mohamad” received particularly high readership numbers in Australia. “For something that happened recently in a close neighbouring country, it's interesting to see what stories don’t really make the cut in Australian media,” commented Vaarwerk, who also works as a TV news captioner. “We heard a bit about 1MDB but not really anything about the Sheraton Move or what was really happening in Malaysia at the time.” 

Where is the showcase series off to next? At last year’s Asia Pacific Writers & Translators conference in Macau, Vaarwerk attended The Polyphony of the Philippines panel, which featured Filipino writers Ned Parfan, Paul Alcoseba Castillo, Jun Cruz Reyes and Roland Tolentino.

“They were talking about panel language politics, and that even though there are so many languages at play there, in terms of publishing and the creative writing scene, the lingua franca is English. This made my ears prick up in terms of something we could work with.” Submissions for KYD’s Philippines Showcase opened last week, with the selected pieces to be published in July. 

Vaarwerk acknowledged that KYD’s structural and resource limitations mean it’s only able to publish works in English, and the inherent privilege in this. “It’s not ideal in terms of the voices we will hear in these showcases. They won’t be truly representative.”

With nations as diverse as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and with limited publishing slots, this is a given regardless of language. KYD should be congratulated for giving it a crack.

“We’re primarily about Australian writers but it is something we want to remind Australian readers of: we’re part of Asia and we should know more about it.”