Three Books by Malaysian Authors....

The last 2 or 3 months pakdokter must have read 7 or 8 books but only managed to finish three of them. And all the three happened to be written by Malaysian authors.

'Leaving the Heart Behind' is an interesting story that took place during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. However, the story aside, its style did not match up to the standard of another story of the Japanese occupation written by another Malaysian author, Rani Manicka, whose first novel, the Rice Mother, was a prize-winner in London a few years ago..

But the most interesting read for pakdokter was this collection of short writings by Hishamuddin Rais whose 'foodie' articles originally appeared in the weekly "Off the Edge" but has been compiled into this book by Zaid Ibrahim Publishers. Hishamuddin was a student activist in the University of Malaya during pakdokter's days at medical school and had to escape to Europe after the student unrest of the 70's was suppressed by the then government . Reading Hishamuddin's writings, pakdokter could not escape feeling and noticing that despite having become quite a 'global' citizen, there are still quite a lot of "Melayuness" about him....