Parameters of Malaysian identity in the novels of Lloyd Fernando and K S Maniam

Abstract

This paper focuses on the works of two leading Malaysian novelists, Lloyd Fernando and K S Maniam, of Eurasian and Tamil descent respectively. Both of these men have published two novels to date, and both have developed themes pertinent to the identity of the land in which they live, and the peoples who live there, those whom the inimitable Dennis Bloodworth once termed the “mythical Malaysians.” The novels by Fernando and Maniam confirm that the parameters of Malaysian identity were, and remain, communally defined and exclusionist. In the contemporary world of nation-states, not all colonization is externally inspired.