A review by zhynxd
Malay Sketches by Alfian Sa'at

5.0

Absolutely stellar!!!! I truly loved what he did in this book. Alfian Sa'at raised so many pertinent points and highlighted so many key issues in our country in the most elegant and interesting ways! Was expecting a lot as we read one of the stories for class and of course not all stories were all on the same standard (but it may honestly be more due to my inability to pick up on and decipher the subtle nuances he weaves in) His writing style is also really beautiful and I love the way he uses elements of Malay culture and put them in parallel with the character's plights. The stories also gives voice to many overlooked and underexamined groups in society. I do wish that he could have more showing instead of telling but that may just be his writing style. It was also just a small minus so all in all it's 10/10.

Below are the stories that hit me I'm various ways :
1. A hantu Tetek story (tw: gory descriptions)
2. Cold comfort (!!!!!)
4. Sacrifice (!!!!)
6. Shallow focus
9. Proof (!!!!)
10. The hole
12. The sendoff (!!!!) (Tw: gory descriptions and corpse)
13. A howling (!!!!!)
14. A Pontianak story
15. His birthday present
16. A toyol story (!!!!)
17. Second take (!!!!)
18. Visitors (!!!!)
19. The Borrowed boy (!!!!)
20. the starry hill (!!!!)
21. Child (!!!!)

As you can see this is a pretty long list and this was after I deleted a few BC the list was getting too long and becoming a bit pointless.