The English Language and Global Literary Influences on the Work of Shahnon Ahmad

Abstract

Postcolonial literary theory asserts that the colonial literature provides the models and sets the standards which writers and readers in the colonies may either imitate or resist. The major Malay author Shahnon Ahmad received his secondary and tertiary education in English and taught English at the beginning of his career. Drawing on his collection of essays Weltanschauung: Suatu Perjalanan Kreatif (2008), the paper argues that Shahnon was influenced at significant points in his literary development by his reading of literature in English and English translation-nineteenth century European and American short stories, the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and William Faulkner - but not by English (British) literature itself. Through his creation of original new works, focused on Malay society and directed towards Malay audiences, Shahnon was not a postcolonial subject but a participant in, and contributor to, the wider flow of world literature.

Keywords: postcolonial, Shanon Ahmad, English literature, literature in English, world literature