I was pleased to learn of the appointment of National Laureate, Datuk Dr Anwar Ridhwan as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP).
He is not only a wonderful writer but is also kind and sincere. We met a long time ago in 1971, when we were studying at the University of Malaya.
I remember a few days before returning to Moscow, a student — Anwar — approached and handed me a stack of printed sheets consisting of poems and stories. He asked for my evaluation.
Much turned out to be interesting in terms of plot and language. I handed the poems to Vladimir Braginsky, and the stories to Vladilen Sigaev, who was preparing with B.B. Parnikel, a publication of an "Anthology of Modern Malaysian Short Stories".
Sigaev agreed that the stories were not bad and singled out one "Bukan ini yang Aku Mahu", and noted that the anthology already contained a story with a similar plot.
When the anthology came out, I didn't find anything similar. Perhaps, Sigaev was mistaken or thought that a student had no place among the venerable Malaysian writers in the collection like Usman Awang, Keris Mas, A. Samad Said, etc.
From afar, I followed Anwar's creative quest. Many of his stories, distinguished by their perfection of language and style, received national awards and were included in anthologies along with the works of his older famous predecessors.
Later, I came across a collection of Malay prose and found Anwar's story "Sesudah Perang" which I immediately translated and sent to Professor Alexander Ogloblin in St Petersburg, who placed it in one of his collections on Southeast Asian culture in 1996.
Introducing the story to readers, linguist A.K. Ogloblin stated: "Malaysian writer Anwar Ridhwan (born 1949) effectively combines in his short story the traditional motif of family secrets with the latest writing techniques."
True, Anwar's works are full of social resonance and touch on the most pressing problems of modern Malaysia, written in excellent figurative language.
Some literary critics even argue that both the form and content of the writer's works fully meet the criteria for awarding the Nobel Prize. Some of his works have been translated into English, Arabic, Hungarian, Italian, Chinese, German, Russian, and French.
A highlight of Anwar's creativity is the novel, "Naratif Ogonshoto", which has won several regional awards, including the SEA Writers Award (2002) and the MASTERA Prize (2003), and was almost immediately translated into English, Chinese and Dutch — an unprecedented event in Malaysian literature!
Undoubtedly, it helped Anwar to become a National Laureate in 2009.
The Ogonshoto archipelago, small in size and located almost at the edge of the earth, is transformed by the writer into a place where all the main problems of modern humanity make themselves felt: freedom, democracy, dictatorship, poverty, predatory destruction of nature, environmental pollution.
There is no unity and mutual understanding between people. Eternal sadness permeates all events, and there is a constant sense of hopelessness.
On this archipelago, people do not seem to live at all but perform a ritual, the meaning of which they do not understand.
Life on Ogonshoto is not only about magic, dreams, and fantasies, but also about enmity between the authorities and ordinary people, which sometimes leads to bloodshed and the death of innocents.
All this is contrary to universal human morality and the commandments of God. Therefore, it is natural that in the end, the archipelago vanished, washed away by the tsunami.
Anwar continued to show his creativity with two novels — "Penyeberang Sempadan" and "Wajah Timur Lidah Barat" — in 2012.
Let's hope that he will continue his creative search.
I am sure that, in his new post, he will make a significant contribution especially in expanding the use of the Malay language and developing the literary scene in Malaysia.
I have high hopes that DBP will reach new heights under Anwar's chairmanship.
* The writer, writing from Russia, is a former lecturer at University of Malaya
