1st Edition

The Literature of Brunei History, Culture, and Challenges

Edited By Ooi Keat Gin, Kathrina Mohd Daud Copyright 2025
236 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

236 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

236 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book presents an overview of the literature of Brunei, surveying literary traditions, innovations, and new approaches as well as historical and contemporary issues and challenges. This book highlights the unique characteristics of Bruneian literature, including its approach to bilingualism - Brunei Malay and English - its historical intertwining with monarchs and myths, and how its... Read more

Preface; Introduction; 1. The Earliest Malay Letters from Brunei, Annabel Teh Gallop; 2. Pengiran Indera Mahkota aka Pengiran Shahbandar Mohammad Salleh bin Pengiran Sharmayuda, Author of Syair Rakis and Brunei’s Foremost Literary Figure, Ooi Keat Gin; 3. Syair Rakis and the Nineteenth-Century Bruneian Sultanate: Prophecy, Reality, and the Economy, Asbol Mail; 4. The Egg and Chicken in Bruneian Malay Society: From Folklore to Present-Day Food Culture, Asbol Mail; 5. Burung garuda and burung serandit – A Textual Enquiry of Avian Culture in Brunei Darussalam, Arndt Graf; 6. Bruneian Women’s Writing as an Emergent Minor Literature in English, Grace V. S. Chin; 7. Ethnic Oral Literature (Kèjhung) of the Marginalized Dusun, Chong Ah Fok; 8. The Temporal Mundane in Anglophone Chinese Diaspora Writing from Brunei Darussalam, Hannah M. Y. Ho; 9. Bruneian Drama: Between the Local and the Global, Ena Herni Wasli; 10. (Re)governing Translation Industry in Brunei: A Case Study on Creative Writing, Badriyah Yusof and Izni Azrein Noor Azalie; 11. A Comparative Analysis of the La Galigo and Syair Awang SemaunStephen C. Druce; 12. On the Lineage of Contemporary Bruneian Literature, Kathrina Mohd Daud; Index

Biography

Ooi Keat Gin is a Professor of the Modern History of Brunei/Borneo at the Academy of Brunei Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei and Visiting Professor at the Korean Institute of ASEAN Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies, Busan, South Korea. With Victor T. King he co-edited Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Brunei (Routledge 2023) and co-authored The Handbook of Southeast Asian Studies: Pioneers and Critical Thinkers, Parts I & II (2024, Part I).

Kathrina Mohd Daud is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei. She was co-editor of The Southeast Asian Woman Writes Back: Gender, Identity and Nation in the Literatures of Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (2017) with Grace V. S. Chin, and her latest novel, The Witch Doctor’s Daughter (Epigram 2022) was longlisted for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize (EBFP).