ABSTRACT

The riots of 13 May 1969 are kept alive as social memory in Malaysia. As the government continues to ignore calls to declassify the documents on the racial riots, historical evidence of 13 May is scarce, and the ‘truth’ remains obscured. This article, however, moves away from the truth-seeking mission and studies three contemporary fictions by Malaysian women writers. They are Sinophone writer Li Zishu’s (2010 Li, Zishu. 2010. Gaobie de niandai [The Era of Farewell]. Taipei: Linking Publishing. [Google Scholar]) Gaobie de niandai (The Era of Farewell), Anglophone writer Preeta Samarasan’s (2008 Samarasan, Preeta. 2008. Evening Is the Whole Day. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Google Scholar]) Evening Is the Whole Day and Hanna Alkaf’s The Weight of Our Sky (2019 Hanna Alkaf. 2019. The Weight of Our Sky. New York: Salaam Reads. [Google Scholar]). It seeks to discover a feminized territory to explore how women writers of the post-1969 generation narrate the 13 May riots and offers critiques of the entrenched male-dominated, racialized narrative. It uses Marianne Hirsch's 2008 concept of ‘postmemory’ to examine the ways they constitute memories in their own right and articulate a new identity, one that is different from their previous generation. The article demonstrates how three women writers propose different ways to embrace the wounds of 13 May, thereby showing the importance of acknowledging the painful feelings and memories of the traumatic history as lived, not forcing them to be cured or reconciled.

摘要

1969 年 5 月 13 日的骚乱作为马来西亚的社会记忆一直存在。由于政府继续无视对种族骚乱文件解密的呼吁，5 月 13 日的历史证据很少，“真相”仍然模糊不清。然而，这篇文章偏离了求真使命，研究了马来西亚女作家的三部当代小说。他们是华语作家李子树的（2010 李子舒。 2010 年。Gaobie de niandai [告别的时代]。台北：链接出版。 [Google Scholar] )Gaobie de niandai(The Era of Farewell), 英语作家 Preeta Samarasan's (2008) 萨马拉桑，普雷塔。 2008 年。晚上是一整天。波士顿：霍顿米夫林。 [Google Scholar] )夜晚是一整天，汉娜·阿尔卡夫 (Hanna Alkaf) 的天空之重(2019)汉娜·阿尔卡夫。2019 年。我们天空的重量。纽约：萨拉姆读。 [谷歌学术]）。它试图发现一个女性化的领域，探索 1969 年后一代的女性作家如何叙述 5 月 13 日的骚乱，并对根深蒂固的男性主导的种族化叙事提出批评。它使用玛丽安·赫希 (Marianne Hirsch) 2008 年的“后记忆”概念来检查它们以自己的方式构成记忆的方式，并阐明了一种与上一代不同的新身份。这篇文章展示了三位女作家如何提出不同的方式来拥抱 5 月 13 日的伤口，从而展示了承认痛苦的感受和对创伤历史的记忆的重要性，而不是强迫它们被治愈或和解。