The day after the launch of New Malaysian Essays 1 (a 2-hour event where over 200 local books managed to be sold), I spoke to Zulhabri Supian (who works at Gerakbudaya) about the possibility of organising a longer event that focuses on local books. This idea was strengthened when, a week later, I found out that several Malay fiction books were rejected by a large distributor; although no reasons were given, the fact that none of them had 'Cinta' or "Kasih' in the title may have been a contributing factor. So this is what we came up with; do join us!The 1st
KL Alternative Bookfest (KLAB) will be held on the weekend of 3-4 May, 2008 at The Annexe, Central Market.
Held less than a month after the mammoth
Pesta Buku KL (where you can buy as many text-books, romance novels and religious instruction manuals as you want), it will be held simultaneously with the very popular
Art For Grabs event – but in a different room.
KLAB is ... basically a gathering of small, independent publishers who would like a popular venue to sell, launch and discuss books. We seek to fill 10-15 tables. Each table can be taken up by one publisher, or it can be shared between various people who each have books to sell.
There are many happenin' Malaysian books now being published; the trouble is, not many of them are readily available in the main bookshops. This is an opportunity to bring these books to the public, and to make the whole process fun lah.
4 tables have already been filled up; they are by Gerakbudaya, SIRD, Silverfish, and Matahari Books. We seek 6-11 others. We are in negotiations to bring one publisher each from Singapore & Indonesia too.
The events we plan are:
- Book launch by Hishamuddin Rais
- Discussion of new books, with the authors present
- A 'book give-away' where people can simply get rid of books they no longer want, for free. This will physically take up one corner of the room, where people can just leave the books. The idea is to make interesting books available even to those who can't afford to buy 'em. The remainder of the books will be donated, most likely to
The Ricecooker Shop- Bilingual poetry slam, where the audience gets to vote for favourite performers (to be coordinated by
Ted Mahsun)
- And more!
Details:
The fee per table (for both days) is RM100
The event is from 12-6pm both days.
Deadline to receive entries (including payment) is April 26
Payment goes directly to The Annexe
Interested? Contact zulhabri at gmail dot com.
KLAB is something initiated by the good folks at The Annexe KL, together with indie publisher Zulhabri Supian and myself. Our aim was to provide an offbeat alternative to the massive bookfair at the PWTC every year (although we support that one also lah). 
Buku 
