Featured Writers in World Literature

Che Husna Azhari

         Che Husna Azhari is a Malaysian woman writer that is well-known in Malaysia. She is born and bred in Kelantan. She was born on November 8 1955 in Kota Bharu, Melor Kelantan. She received her degree from Tunku Khursiah College in 1973 and A levels from Oxford college of Further Education in 1975. In 1979 she received a degree from Brunel University of West London in Polymer Technology. In 1985 she was awarded with a PhD in Response Engineering from Brunel of West London.

          She is a Professor in University Kebangsaan Malaysia at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, specializing in non-material metallic processing. She is also the Director of the Center for Corporate Planning and Communications at that University. Her writings are generally set in Kelantan, Malaysia, and her best known short stories are used as standard teaching in Malaysia. Her writing Of Bunga Telur and Bally shoes is well-known among Malaysians and her works are widely read in the country and outside of the country.

           Her work Mariah is studied in this course. Mariah is one of her short stories that discusses and criticize the society in Kelantan during the 1990’s. This short story tells on how women are treated and how they lead their life in a patriarchal society.

Themes


 In her short story Mariah, Che Husna brings forward the theme of the treatment of women and Polygamy.

• The treatment of women is criticized through the characters of the Imam, Cik Yam and Mariah. Che Husna criticizes on the men and their attitudes and on how a man easily marries another even when he already has a kind and submissive wife. 

• Polygamy has always been a topic that is highly debatable in Malaysia. Polygamy is also considered as a widely discussed issue in the marriage field. Many prominent figures and normal people debate about this topic.

R.K. Narayan 

R.K. Narayan is known as one of the famous writers of all time. He was born on October 10, 1906 and has been regard as one of India’s greatest English language writers. In fact, he is also known as the key figure who introduced Indian literature to the world. He was a writer who loves to write about society and particularly, the Indian society in his own imaginary town in India, specifically called Malgudi. He has written many well known books such as Swami and Friends, The English Teacher, The Financial Expert and much more. In addition, among all of his works, the novel entitled The Guide has been the most famous and successful work which also has won the Sahitya Akademi Award. The novel contained everything from humour, religion, culture to humanism. Finally, through his incredible works, he has won many awards such as the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature and the Padma Vibnushan ( India’s second-highest civilian award). Additionally, through his literary works also,  he has made India as one of the most famous countries which is full of culture, tradition and so on. However, sadly, R.K. Narayan died on May 13, 2001. Nevertheless, his contributions in the world of literature will never be forgotten.

Themes

           R.K. Narayan loves to write on realist fiction and particularly uses culture, religion and tradition as the theme in most of his novels. In fact, he also loves to use gentle humour in his writing in order to not only entertain the reader but also to actually advice and remind them anything that is related to life . As for an example, in one of R.K. Narayan’s works entitled The Guide, there are a lot of elements that we can study from it and mostly, he stresses on the matter of culture.

           As we know, everyone has their own culture and indeed, it is one of the unique assets of human beings. Thus, that is the reason why R.K. Narayan emphasized on the element of culture in most of his novel. For example, in The Guide, R.K. Narayan mostly discuss about the Indian culture. He also stress on the Indian's traditional beliefs and its impact to the society. Finally, through this novel, we can also sees that to know one's culture is very important and it can certainly shapes a person's character.

"There are writers- Tolstoy and Henry James to name two- whom we held in awe, writers- Turgenev and Chekhov- for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect- Conrad for example- but who hold us at a long arm's length with their 'courtly foreign grace.' Narayan {whom I don't hesitate to name in such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian." 

- Graham Greene, a friend and a mentor

“Narayan has created in this figure a type which is unique in world literature.”

- Flensburger Tageblatt

Saul Bellow 

Another great writer that we know through this course is Saul Bellow was a Canadian born American writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He also was the only writer to have won the National Book Award three times, and the only writer to have been nominated for it six times. Generally, Bellow’s works concerned about;

 *   Disorienting nature of modern civilization- materialism, misleading knowledge, etc.

 *  The ability of humans to overcome their weakness and achieve greatness.

Themes 

    One of his well-known works is a ‘bildungsroman’ (a genre of the novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist) novel entitled  “Henderson the Rain King” which became part of our syllabus in the ’World Literature’ course. There are some valuable themes that we can get through this novel and some of the themes represented are;

•    Self- discovery and spiritual discovery of the self
•    The character of 'Eugene Henderson'- feels restless and unfulfilled. Also, his inner voice that always crying out I want I want I want

•    Modern VS traditional way of life
•    From New York- Villages in Africa