As I Please: Selected Writings 1975-1994

by Salleh Ben Joned

Malaysian journalist and essayist Salleh Ben Joned is one of that rare breed; the literary street fighter who does not hesitate to be controversial or shocking in order to make his point. This collection of writings from his As I Please column in deals with subjects ranging from folklore and religion to sex, politics, and censorship. A second section contains essays about writing and writers discussing such diverse personalities as Joyce, Lorca, and Salman Rushdie.

Genres: Nonfiction

183 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Born in Malacca in 1941, Salleh spent ten years Down Under as one of the last Colombo Plan Scholars. But instead of studying, he got married to a fellow student in his first year at the University of Adelaide. His in-laws disapproved, so the couple moved to Hobart where Salleh became a student of one of Australia’s major poets, James McAuley, at the University of Tasmania. He returned to Malaysia in 1973 to lecture in English Literature at Universiti Malaya, but quit in 1983 to become a freelance scribbler, actor and translator. His first book was the bilingual poetry collection, Sajak-Sajak Saleh: Poems Sacred and Profane (Teks, 1987). It was followed by As I Please (Skoob, 1994) and Nothing is Sacred (Maya Press, 2003), which were compilations of his popular New Straits Times column, the poetry book Adam’s Dream (Silverfish, 2007), and the play The Amok of Mat Solo (Silverfish, 2011). He died in Subang Jaya in 2020.

Reviews

[Luc Abdullah]

Beli dengan harga RM 5 sahaja di celah buku-buku bundle. Dan, ya, masih baru.

Nak taip panjang-panjang. Tapi nantilah.

[Yeo_heng_hau YEO · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by Malaysian poet Salleh Ben Joned is a selection of his writings from 1975-1994. It comprises four essays written in the 70s and 80s and a sample of the articles he contributed to his column " As I Please" in the New Straits Times during the early 1990s. Salleh Ben Joned writes extremely well and reading this collections gives us a good idea of the main causes he fight for for Malaysia's literature. We get some idea of his development as a poet in the first essay. A sort of obituary for his mentor and teacher renown Australian poet James McAuley, he shares with us how being taught by James who sets very high standards on the craft of writing poetry he was able to sharpen his poetic skills. Not one who keeps what he thinks to himself, Salleh always speak his mind on issues relating to the development of art and literature in Malaysia. He laments the blinkered thinking of most of the Malay poets in the country who not only do not speak out frankly and openly the illness in society in their poems but are also fully opposed to the promotion of English in teaching and writing literature. In both the essays and the articles Salleh Ben Joned also shared with us his views on Islam and set out his arguments lucidly on the rationale and thinking behind his point of views.

[Johan Radzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Secara relatifnya, bahan bacaan yang baik. Kritikan-kritikannya terhadap sosial cum sastera cum siasah tanahair masih relevan untuk difikirkan pada hari ini. Adakah ini tanda bahawa keadaan sosial kita yang masih tidak berganjak, meskipun dengan ledakan maklumat daripada laman sesawang yang sentiasa menyala pada skrin laptop dan telefon pintar kita? Barangkali.

Karl Rafiq pernah kata kepadaku Salleh ini 'pretentious'. Waktu itu aku tidak berapa faham. Baru baca sajak-sajaknya yang saya anugerahkan tiga bintang untuk idea-idea baharu. Tapi pasca pembacaan esei-esei ini membuatkan saya berasa sasterawan yang 'traumatik' ini suka angkat bakul sendiri juga kekadang. Mungkin perasaan saya sahaja agaknya.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salleh Ben Joned is a strong writer with witty and rather unprecedented opinions. Gave me a glimpse of an era I was not familiar with in a very fascinating way. I agreed and disagreed on many things while reading this, which I feel, is a sign of a good book. That it made me think,