The Literature of Brunei

History, Culture, and Challenges

Ooi Keat Gin, Kathrina Mohd Daud

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040317006
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book presents an overview of the literature of Brunei, surveying literary traditions, innovations, and new approaches as well as historical and contemporary issues and challenges.

This book highlights the unique characteristics of Bruneian literature, including its approach to bilingualism - Brunei Malay and English - its historical intertwining with monarchs and myths, and how its emerging developments can be charted in the twenty-first century.

Gathering together the work of both established and emerging scholars of Bruneian literature and history, this book brings detailed scholarship to an English-speaking audience, some of which was originally written in the Malay language, and highlights a Bruneian perspective. In drawing out the peculiar traditions, innovations, and challenges of Bruneian literature, this collection of essays is not only original in concept but also a pioneering endeavour.

The Literature of Brunei will be of interest to researchers in World and Asian Literature, in particular Southeast Asian literature.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Note on Contributors
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction
• 1 The Earliest Malay Letters from Brunei
• 2 Pengiran Indera Mahkota aka Pengiran Shahbandar Mohammad Salleh bin Pengiran Sharmayuda, Author of Syair Rakis and Brunei’s Foremost Literary Figure
• 3 Syair Rakis and the Nineteenth-Century Bruneian Sultanate: Prophecy, Reality, and the Economy
• 4 The Egg and Chicken in Bruneian Malay Society: From Folklore to Present-Day Food Culture
• 5 Burung garuda and burung serandit – A Textual Enquiry of Avian Culture in Brunei Darussalam
• 6 Bruneian Women’s Writing as an Emergent Minor Literature in English
• 7 Ethnic Oral Literature (Kèjhung) of the Marginalized Dusun
• 8 The Temporal Mundane in Anglophone Chinese Diaspora Writing from Brunei Darussalam
• 9 Bruneian Drama: Between the Local and the Global
• 10 (Re)governing Translation Industry in Brunei: A Case Study on Creative Writing
• 11 A Comparative Analysis of the La Galigo and Syair Awang Semaun
• 12 On the Lineage of Contemporary Bruneian Literature
• Index