Malaysia's past: appropriating history in Malaysian literature in English

Abstract

Attempts to recover a nation's past are never done on impulse but for very specific reasons. The re-visioning of history by Malaysian writers in English is seen as an engagement in a nationalism that revises history; this "historical nationalism" is one that "assumes the indispensability of a sense of past to a nation's process of self-authentication and its discovery, recovery and invention of this past" (Roxas-Tope 1998). In the two novels analysed, history not only serves as backdrop for the narrative, but more importantly, it offers the writers a re-visioning stance through a local perspective. Thus, addressing the changing constructs of history and foregrounding the ideology operating in its transformation will reflect the writers' articulation and representations of their nation.