The Life in the Writing: Syed Hussein Alatas

The Life in the Writing is the first biography of Malaysian scholar and former National University of Singapore academician, Syed Hussein Alatas (1928-2007). The author has chosen to reconstruct her father’s life by focusing on the very activity which brought his learning to the world: writing. Containing previously unpublished material and rare photographs, this biography also reveals for the first time how Syed Hussein Alatas’ most famous work, The Myth of the Lazy Native, got published, what his connections to Edward W. Said and Virginia Woolf were, and more. Originally published in 2010, this new edition of The Life in the Writing contains exclusive new content about Alatas and Italy, previously unpublished samples of his poetry and letters, his contributions to the Rukunegara, his thoughts on May 13, censorship, and UFO sightings, and a contribution from Malaysian filmmaker and writer, Amir Muhammad. Masturah Alatas has attempted to portray Syed Hussein Alatas’ life through the art of his writings so that readers may know him, and also know what it took for him to become known.

About the Author

Masturah Alatas is the youngest child of the late Syed Hussein Alatas. She is the author of the fable, The Girl Who Made It Snow In Singapore (Singapore: Ethos Books 2008), and is one of several writers around the world to be included in the anthology Will The Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change (LeftWord Books, 2017). Masturah teaches English at the University of Macerata, in Italy, where she has been living since 1992. She has also published essays and short fiction in Italian, making her the first Malaysian to write and publish in that language.