Page 11 - 04/2022 PULSE@FASS e-Bulletin1

Issue no. 4 | 2022

FASS Academics at the George Town Literary
Festival 2022
By Dr Florence Kuek

Dr Vilashini Somiah, Dr Teoh Hooi See and Dr Florence Kuek representing FASS at the 'Taming the Wild'
The George Town Literary Festival (GTLF) 2022, the Chaos’. Dr Kuek moderated another Chinese panel
'Taming the Wild', celebrating the works of 75 trending discussion on ‘Conversing in Poetry and Prose’. Dr Kuek
writers, poets, publishers and the media members from was also appointed guest curator for the Chinese panel
12 countries from 25 to 27 November 2022 in George discussions this year.
Town, Penang attracted more than 4000 participants.
Among the book launches was Dr Kuek’s latest work,
The festival was organized by the Penang Convention ‘Tasik Itu Bagai Cermin—Antologi Cerpen Mahua’, a
and Exhibition Bureau, together with the Canadian Chinese-Malay translation of 7 novellas by seven award-
Embassy, French Embassy, Embassy of Ireland, winning Malaysian Chinese writers, produced in
Australian Embassy, British Council, Commonwealth collaboration with SM Zakir, winner of SEA Write 2011.
Foundation, Japan Foundation, Taipei Economic and The authors and participants lauded the GTLF2022 for
Cultural Office in Malaysia, Literature Translation its multicultural, multilingual and inclusive nature. The
Institute of Korea, Worlds without Borders, Tilted Axis festival ended with Malaysian music and dance
and Ethos Books. performance and poetry recitals by the respective poets
in their native languages.
The leading lights of the festival included Malaysian
National Laureate Zurinah Hassan, 2022 International
Booker prize finalist Bora Chung, Algerian poet Habib
Tengour, Indian literary icon B. Jeyamohan, and
diasporic poets such as Andriy Lyubka from Ukraine and
ko ko thett from Myanmar.

The three-day event saw 80 sessions encompassing
panel discussions, in-conversations, screenings,
workshops, book launches and readings. Dr Vilashini
Somiah, Dr Teoh Hooi See and Dr Florence Kuek
represented FASS . Dr Vilashini Somiah spoke on ‘Wild
Woman, Feral Females’ while Dr Teoh moderated a Dr Florence and Syed Mohd Zakir Syed Othman with their book
Chinese panel discussion titled ‘Embrace Life, Diffuse 'Tasik Itu Bagai Cermin'

11 | Pulse @ FASS