Monday 1 October 2007

RIP Silverfish New Writing series

In the global or even local scheme of things, the fact that an annual literally anthology will have no further editions is hardly in the same league as worries about whether the Chief Justice of a country might be a corrupt bugger.

Still, the shock announcement that the Silverfish New Writing series will soon release its final (7th) edition is an impoverishing one.

Imbas kembali
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Perhaps the sales figures no longer justified such an enterprise?

No one's asking for my opinion, but I will give it anyway. I feel the series should have stayed as a focus on Malaysian and Singaporean writers. It could have then become a reference point for writers and readers interested in this area. From the third issue on, it started to lack a distinctive character when too many foreigners started pouring in. (Does this make me sound xenophobic? But no one complains when, say, The Booker Prize restricts itself to only writers from Britain and 'the Commonwealth').

It shall be missed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first one's my favourite. Sad news, but one can always hope that Raman will change his mind and continue with the series.

Anonymous said...

Why don't you ask Raman what his next plan for the local literary scene is? Perhaps he already has one:)

Amir Muhammad said...

I have no doubt he has something brewing, and I will let him announce when he sees fit :-)