Author: Angry Malay Woman

I like plants.

Book launch address: Remapping the Cold War in Asian Cinemas

Here’s an example of being paid (and fed) to read. I was invited to be a discussant at a book launch Singapore Management University in February 2025. As discussant, it was my role to read a book and talk about it, especially the sections in the book by contributors who would appear in person at… Continue reading Book launch address: Remapping the Cold War in Asian Cinemas

Queer Muslim subjectivity: a short commentary

Below is a pre-published version of a commentary I was invited to write for Current Anthropology: One of the bees that inhabit uneasily in every anthropologist’s bonnet is the question of representation. Viola Thimm’s article, ‘Queer Muslim Subjectivity: LGBTQIA+ identity in Malaysia between transnational self-awareness, pilgrimage politics and Islamic repression’ [in Current Anthropology], is perhaps… Continue reading Queer Muslim subjectivity: a short commentary

After the Malaysian ‘gay novel’ (first published in the Mekong Review)

This is the pre-published version of my short review of Tash Aw’s novel, The South, in the November 2025 issue of the Mekong Review: Tash Aw has written five novels. His newest, The South, is the first one that explicitly explores the homosexuality of a teenage Malaysian-Chinese boy on the cusp of adulthood. The titular… Continue reading After the Malaysian ‘gay novel’ (first published in the Mekong Review)

‘Go toilet’: notes on Singaporean virtues

Singapore is a great country for individuals with IBS; there are free public toilets – most of which are clean and functioning – within a short distance of each other. The lavatorial services on offer far surpass advanced economies in the west in accessibility and just sheer logistical convenience. Nearly all of which do not… Continue reading ‘Go toilet’: notes on Singaporean virtues

New publication in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing

One thing I’ve accepted about myself somewhat recently is that I am a slow writer. Of course “slowness” is relative. I know many who are even slower than me, those of whom who would consider me a “fast” writer. That slowness, however, is not necessarily in the act of drafting itself, which in my case… Continue reading New publication in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing

Grey hell

Luis Buñuel once noted (half jokingly) that the universality of faith had disappeared in the twentieth century because the church had so exaggerated the supposed horrors of hell that no one could take it seriously anymore. If now, at the beginning of the third millennium, we take a look back at the twentieth century, perhaps… Continue reading Grey hell

Be like Insiang

Lino Brocka’s film from 1976, Insiang, opens in a slaughterhouse. Hung by their hind legs, loud squealing pigs meet their end by a decisive stab down the neck. We never meet anymore pigs, alive or dead, later in the film, which means this is but a grisly foreshadowing for things to come. As viewers, we… Continue reading Be like Insiang