Writing in Asia Series was a series of books of Asian writing published from 1966 to 1996 by Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd (often referred to as Heinemann Asia), a subsidiary of Heinemann, London. Initiated and mainly edited by Leon Comber, the series brought attention to various Asian Anglophone writers, like

Shirley Geok-lin Lim Shirley Geok-lin Lim (born 1944) is an American writer of poetry, fiction, and criticism. She was both the first woman and the first Asian person to be awarded Commonwealth Poetry Prize for her first poetry collection, ''Crossing The Peninsul ...

, Western writers based in Asia like

Austin Coates Austin Francis Harrison Coates (16 April 1922 – 16 March 1997) was a British civil servant and writer. Coates was a RAF Intelligence officer in World War II, and his service in Burma, India, Singapore and Malaysia was his first time in the Far ...

and

W. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

and modern and classic stories and novels in English translation from the Malay,

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

, Thai and more. The series is also credited with contributing prominently to creative writing and the creation of a shared regional identity amongst English-language writers of

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

. After publishing more than 110 titles, the series folded after Heinemann Asia was taken over by a parent group of publishers and Comber left.

History

Inspired by the successful and pioneering

African Writers Series The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of books written by African novelists, poets and politicians. Published by Heinemann (publisher), Heinemann, 359 books appeared in the series between 1962 and 2003. The series has provided an int ...

, Leon Comber, the then Southeast Asian Representative of Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., founded the series as its general editor in 1966 in Singapore. Comber thought a similar series focussing initially on Southeast Asia was worth pursuing to "give a tremendous boost to creative writing in English...which was still regarded then as something of a cultural desert". He also wanted to publish the "tremendous body of local writers writing in their local languages" across the entire Asia in English translation "to make it available to a wider reading public" as he felt that existent publishers only focussed on their individual countries. Buoyed by the profits made from textbook publishing, the series first published '' Modern Malaysian Chinese Stories'' in 1967. The anthology, whose stories were edited and mainly translated into English by Ly Singko with a foreword by

Han Suyin Rosalie Matilda Kuanghu Chou (; 12 September 1917 or 1916 – 2 November 2012) was a Chinese-born Eurasian physician and author better known by her pen name Han Suyin (). She wrote in English and French on modern China, set her novels in East an ...

, sold moderately, but Ly was to be detained without trial shortly after by the Singapore authorities under the Internal Security Act for supposed "Chinese chauvinism". The series met with commercial success a decade later when two reprinted

books in the series, '' Myself a Mandarin'' (1977, c.1968) and ''

City of Broken Promises A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

'' (1977, c.1960), became bestsellers. The former was also serialised by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, broadcast on

Radio Hong Kong Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service of Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Economic ...

and had its film rights sold, while the latter was adapted into a play at the 1978 Hong Kong Festival of Arts. Other commercially successful titles were

Tan Kok Seng Tan or TAN may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Tan'', an album by the Polish rock band Kult * TAN (group), South Korean boy band * ''Tan'' (newspaper), a newspaper in Turkey * ''Tan'' (weekly newspaper), a newspaper in Kosovo Businesses ...

's autobiography '' Son of Singapore'' (1972), which sold over 25,000 copies, and Catherine Lim's short-story collection '' Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore'' (1978), which sold 8,000 copies. By 1988, about 15 titles in the series were used as supplementary textbooks in Singapore schools, guaranteeing sales in the thousands. Significantly, as part of the series, Australian

Harry Aveling Harry Aveling (born 1942 in Sydney) is an Australian scholar, translator and teacher. He specialises in Indonesian and Malaysian literature, and Translation Studies. He received the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy in Malay Studies from the Natio ...

translated

Pramoedya Ananta Toer Pramoedya Ananta Toer ( EYD: Pramudya Ananta Tur; 6 February 1925 – 30 April 2006), also nicknamed Pram, was an Indonesian novelist and writer. His works span the colonial period under Dutch rule, Indonesia's struggle for independence, ...

's novel '' The Fugitive (Perburuan)'' (1975, c.1950) and

Iwan Simatupang Iwan Martua Lokot Dongan Simatupang, more commonly known as Iwan Simatupang (18 January 1928 in Sibolga, North Sumatra – 4 August 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia) was an Indonesian novelist, poet and essayist. Life and works He joined the (TRIP), ...

's novel '' The Pilgrim (Ziarah)'' (1969) from the

to English. ''The Pilgrim'' is considered the first modern Indonesian novel and won the first

ASEAN Literary Award The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, commonly abbreviated as ASEAN, is a regional grouping of 10 states in Southeast Asia "that aims to promote economic and security cooperation among its ten members." Together, its member states re ...

for the novel in 1977. The series also met with critical acclaim when

's debut collection ''

Crossing The Peninsula & Other Stories Crossing may refer to: * ''Crossing'' (2008 film), a South Korean film * ''Crossing'' (2024 film), an internationally co-produced film * ''Crossing'' (album), a 1985 album by world music/jazz group Oregon * ''The Crossing'' (Joker Xue album), ...

'' (1980) won the

Commonwealth Poetry Prize The Commonwealth Poetry Prize was an annual poetry prize established in 1972, for a first published book of English poetry from a country other than the United Kingdom. It was initially administered jointly by the Commonwealth Institute and the Nat ...

, a first both for an Asian and for a woman. The series also published the debut titles of pioneering Singapore poets like

Edwin Thumboo Edwin Nadason Thumboo B.B.M. and Bar, PJG (born 22 November 1933) is a Singaporean poet and academic who is regarded as one of the pioneers of English literature in Singapore. Thumboo graduated in English from the University of Malaya in 19 ...

and

Lee Tzu Pheng Anne Lee Tzu Pheng (born May 13, 1946) is a Singaporean poet. She has five volumes of poems to her name; of these, the first three, ''Prospect of a Drowning'' (1980), ''Against the Next Wave'' (1988) and ''The Brink of An Amen'' (1991) were winne ...

. In 1982, however, Charles Cher, the then General Manager of Heinemann Educational Books, confirmed that the series had stopped publishing poetry because of poor sales. In 1985, after publishing more than 70 titles, Comber left the series after Heinemann Asia was taken over by a parent group of publishers. In retrospect, Comber notes that in business terms, Heinemann made "very little" from the series, though it neither lost much, with textbook publishing sales subsidising the series. The series continued until around 1996, resuming publishing poetry and diversifying its focus beyond literary fiction to ghost stories. Some Writing in Asia series titles have since been republished by other companies, like

Lloyd Fernando Lloyd Fernando (31 May 1926 – 28 February 2008) was a Malaysian author and professor at the University of Malaya in the English Department. Life Lloyd Fernando was born to a Sinhalese family in Sri Lanka in 1926. In 1938, his family migrated ...

's novel ''

Scorpion Orchid ''Scorpion Orchid'' is a novel by Malaysian author Lloyd Fernando, first published by Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) in 1976 under the Writing in Asia Series. The novel is set in Singapore in the 1950s. It was re-published by Epigram Books in ...

'' (1976) by

Epigram Books Epigram Books is an independent publishing company in Singapore. It publishes works of Singapore-based writers, poets and playwrights. History Epigram was founded in 1991 by Edmund Wee as a design agency. Epigram began the publishing and d ...

in 2014.

List of authors and books in the Writing in Asia Series

References

Book series Heinemann (publisher) books

History

List of authors and books in the Writing in Asia Series

See also

References