Set against the tumult of wartime Malaya under Japanese rule, this novel follows the escapades of the irrepressible young Ah Kiew, whose predictable world of school and church is turned upside down by the war. Along the way, accompanied by a motley cast of characters - his father the bookish sinseh, the lecherous pharmacist Loh Chan, and others - Ah Kiew dodges the conjugal machinations of Madam Tuck, finds employment in a Japanese army depot with the pacifist Captain Tanaka, and ultimately finds his place in the world. This absorbing tale is an entertaining account of everyday life during the Japanese Occupation and a piquant comedy of manners in post-colonial Malaya.

Life in 16th-century Malacca—as it is in Malaysia today—was centred on power and politics, trade and commerce, rivalry and strife, race and religion, and war and peace. As the leading entrepot of the Nusantara, Malacca grew rich and prosperous. Then things took a familiar turn. The political ethos of the inward-looking and self-serving ruling elite had begun to change for the worse. Bent on enjoying the trappings of wealth and power, they ignored the needs and well-being of the rakyat and the State. At the same time, a resurgent Portugal, driven by science and ambition, was the superpower of the day. She could project power and dictate the course of history in most parts of the known world. Malacca was totally unprepared for the Portuguese ‘Mission to Malacca’ in 1509 led by Admiral de Sequeira. The subsequent ill-advised taking of some Portuguese as hostages and the retreat of de Sequeira’s fleet led to Afonso de Albuquerque’s ferocious invasion in 1511, which ends in a shattering defeat for Malacca, leaving in its wake an enduring sense of loss and a legacy of deep distrust for the ‘other’. As a work of historical fiction, Once Upon A Time In Malaysia is a stark reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Some of the most engaging contemporary writing has seen the transformation of the political column into a literary art form – an important way of taking in the world and thinking deeply about it. In his first collection of essays, Zairil Khir Johari offers quick-witted and focused reflections on some of the most pressing and contentious issues of the day. At the heart of the matter is the bane of Malaysian politics – the ethnic question – from which he explores a range of high-profile issues: identity, secularism, federalism, the economy, good governance and education. After sixty years of nationhood, Zairil finds much that is wrong with Malaysia. Its eccentricities are by no means benign. Yet these essays also offer answers to his own assertion that ‘we need to move beyond this.’ At once both philosophical and practical, Finding Malaysia lays down a marker for any serious debate over the future trajectory of the country.

This book provides a picture of a globalized Malaysia where its conventionally-conceived multi-ethnic composition of Malays, Chinese, Indians and Others rub shoulders with or interact more intimately on a daily basis with transnational ethnoscapes of migrant workers, asylum seekers, international students, and foreign spouses. It asks how, as Malaysians become wedded to their citizenship, they extend the same awareness of rights and claims to non-citizens such as African international students, the Indonesian maids who look after their children, and the Chins and stateless Rohingyas who populate the landscape as refugees and undocumented workers. What are the possibilities of forming cosmopolitan solidarities with non-Malaysians? And what are the newcomers’ strategies for place-making and belonging? And to bring the discussions of citizenship in Malaysia into relief, it is also asked how Malaysians abroad seek to enact and make meaningful their Malaysian citizenship. A diversity of experiences shapes the narratives in the chapters: of racialization, rejection, boundary-making and exclusivity, resilience and adaptation. This book was published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.