There’s a lot to look forward to in 2024 – the Year of the Dragon arrives, bringing bountiful blessings and surprises!
Literature-wise, this can be seen through a host of exciting titles upcoming by local authors. Here are six works by Malaysians you will surely want to add to your bookshelf as soon as they become available.
1. ‘Frappes for Three’, by Vidhya Sathyamoorthy (publishing in January)
Maya Joseph is a Penang girl who dreams of becoming a writer despite her father’s objections. Chong Mei Li is a stylish fashionista who wants to make her mark in the fashion world. Rohan Das, born and raised in Delhi, needs to secure a good job to support his middle-class family.
When their paths cross at Maestro University, this unlikely trio soon become good friends. Examining themes such as love, loss and self-discovery, the book reminds us that university life, often bittersweet, carves us into the people we are today.
“Frappes for Three” is the debut novel from freelance content writer and blogger Vidhya Sathyamoorthy.
2. ‘Deplorable Conversations with Cats & Other Distractions’, by Yeoh Jo-Ann (February)
Lucky Lee has everything – wealth, charm, money, good looks – but does very little with it. He takes it for granted that life is good and always will be… until his sister – the go-getting, successful, famous TV chef Pearl Lee – dies horribly and suddenly.
As Lucky struggles to live without his older sibling, the inconceivable happens – her cat begins to talk to him. Now grief-stricken Lucky has a major problem: he may very well be mad!
Author Yeoh Jo-Ann was born in Malaysia but lives in Singapore. Her first novel, “Impractical Uses of Cake”, won the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in Singapore in 2018.
3. ‘Harmony Heights’, by Ong Chin Huat (March)
Harmony Heights is anything but harmonious: in this slightly rundown block of condos resides a microcosm of bourgeois Malaysian society. But beneath the veneer of respect and civility lies a hotbed of secrets and skeletons.
Into this mix, Jan and Erika arrive with their adopted Bangladeshi daughter Sonya. A biracial lesbian couple newly transplanted from Australia, their presence shakes up everything and everyone, forcing the middle-class inhabitants to re-examine their own attitudes and beliefs.
Ong Chin Huat is a freelance writer, fashion stylist and TV host who previously worked at Hong Kong Tatler.
4. ‘Have I Got Something To Tell You’ by Malachi Edwin Vethamani (March)
A collection of stories that explore the intersections and conflicts of sexuality and family typical in contemporary Asian societies – yet also universal.
Within its pages, we meet women torn between marriage and emancipated lives of their own; a young boy whose taste or memory is shaped by May 13; mixed-race couples split by the walls of race and religion; and a sex addict who must come to terms with his own demons, one with hearing impairment.
Malachi Edwin Vethamani is also a poet, editor, critic and bibliographer, and is an emeritus professor with the University of Nottingham.
5. ‘Horror, He Wrote’ by Tan Jit Seng (March)
Ernest Maxwell Graves is a talentless writer who gets the help of a ghostwriter for his book – only in this case, it is an actual ghost called White Lotus, who committed suicide under a bridge at the Taiping Botanical Gardens.
She has her own tale to tell, having been an actual ghostwriter for Adrian Holmes, famous crime novelist who is implicated in the murder of her twin sister, Red Lotus.
A murder-mystery with surprising twists and turns, this is ultimately a tale of love and redemption, with sisters who literally go to hell and back!
Tan Jit Seng is the co-creator of Malaysia’s first English comic book, “Heroines of Darkness”. He also published the novel “Abandoned Gods” in 2022.
6. ‘Tapestry of the Mind’ by Aneeta Sundararaj (June)
This book could be considered the writer’s two-year literary effort to make sense of the human psyche. Readers are introduced to a diverse range of Malaysian protagonists, including dancers, toddlers engaging with spirits, mothers losing their children, men lacking self-worth, and more.
Described by the author as “an everlasting tapestry of words rooted in brutal honesty”, the collection examines issues long avoided or hidden, resulting in poignancy, heartache and mirth.
An award-winning short-story writer, Aneeta Sundararaj took home the Trisha Ashley Award and the H E Bates Short Story Prize in 2022.