Traditional literature, or 'the deed of the reed pen' as it was called by its creators, is not only the most valuable part of the cultural heritage of the Malay people, but also a shared legacy of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei. Malay culture during its heyday saw the entire Universe as a piece of literature written by the Creator with the Sublime Pen on the Guarded Tablet. Literature was not just the creation of a scribe, but a scribe himself, imprinting words on the 'sheet of memory' and thus shaping human personality. This book, the first comprehensive survey of traditional Malay literature in English since 1939, embraces more than a millennium of Malay letters from the vague data of the seventh century up to the early beginnings of the modern literatures in the late nineteenth century. The long path trodden by traditional Malay literature is viewed in historical and theoretical perspectives as a development of integral system, caused by cultural and religious changes, primarily by gradual Islamization. This changing system considered in the entirety of its genres and works, is seen both externally and internally: from the point of view of modern scholarship and through the examination of indigenous concepts of literary creativity, poetics and aesthetics. The book not only repesents an original study based on a specific historico-theoretical approach, but it is also a complete reference-work and an indispensable manual for students.

Scholarly works considering traditional Malay letters from a literary point of view are scarce. In this book, classical Malay literature of the 16th through the 19th centuries is viewed in the context of more than a millennium of medieval Malay letters. In the first part, based on a reconstruction of the literary self-awareness of the Malays, a model is offered of classical Malay literature as an integral, hierarchically arranged a ‘anthropomorphic’ system, the impetus for its formation being the Islamization of the Malay world. A study of the origin and evolution of all genres of Malay literature, as well as an analysis of some exemplary works with special reference to their poetics, provide the factual basis for the suggested model. The second part of the book treats of the aesthetics of classical Malay literature, first and foremost the central notion of the sphere of beauty, ‘the beautiful’ (indah). Its divine origin, internal properties-such as the diversity of manifestations, perfection, orderliness-capable of arousing love and thus producing a harmonizing effect on the human psyche, are considered, as well as the synthesis of Hindu-Javanese and Muslim components in Malay literature aesthetics. This is the first study that aims to present a coherent view of the entire body of classical Malay literature. In a novel and stimulating approach, the organizing principles of Malay literature are seen as a system in which the various genres are allotted their proper place.

Writing a New Society is the first extended study of the novel in Malay and is a groundbreaking study of the relationship between social change and literary practice. The book traces the emergence of the genre from the 1920s and, drawing on 26 of Malaysia's best-known novels, argues that the form was developed as a vehicle for transforming Malay ideas about themselves and their society. Virginia Hooker focuses on the underlying anxiety about racial identity, which underpins much of Malay writing and examines how ethnic identity is constructed and expressed. In a radical break with the traditional notion of Malay society as being totally dependent on the Sultan, the book shows how the novelists centre their writings on descriptions of 'ordinary' Malays, and present the household as the primary site of change. Here the novels develop and describe a 'private' sphere where Malays who previously had no rights begin to exercise their initiative. The concept of social equality which inspires the novelists subverts many of the themes of modern Malay politics.

The Turkic-Turkish Theme in Traditional Malay Literature is the first detailed study of the representation of the Turkic peoples and Ottoman Turks in Malay literature between the 14th–19th centuries. Drawing on a wide range of texts, Vladimir Braginsky uncovers manifold metamorphoses and diverse forms of localisation of this Turkic-Turkish theme. This theme has strongly influenced the religious and political ideals and political mythology of Malay society. By creating fictional rather than realistic portrayals of the Turks and Turkey, imagining the king of Rum as the origin point of Malay dynasties, and dreaming of Ottoman assistance in the jihad against the colonial powers, Malay literati ultimately sought to empower the Malay ‘self’ by bringing it closer to the Turkish ‘other’.