Abstract
Novels in English from two small newly-formed nation states, Malaysia and Singapore, call into question Jameson’s, and like critics, attempts to forge a centred, totalising, hegemonic theory of Third-World literature. English as a foreign language used for colonial administration is under stress in both post-colonial nations. In Malaysia English has drastically down-shifted from colonial pre-eminence to its present position as a second language enabling participation in the global economic system. In 1969 Lloyd Fernando argued, ‘The Malay language is used with a kind of “grass roots” force by more than a hundred million people in South East Asia in a way that English has never been and probably never will be ... The comparatively small body of indigenous writing in English in Malaysia does not warrant more than a few preliminary observations’. (129)
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© 1991 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Lim, S.GL. (1991). Malaysia and Singapore. In: King, B. (eds) The Commonwealth Novel Since 1960. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-64112-3_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-64112-3_6
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