Growing Up in T(e)rengganu

“Awang Goneng does with words what Lat did with pictures.”
–Dr. Annabel Teh Gallop, Head of the South and Southeast Asia section, British Library, London.

The book has been my top secret project this year, and even my better half Kak Teh only knew about it when the editing work was nearly done. My regular readers will know that Growing Up has been a regular and eccentric feature in my blog and if numbers are to be believed, the series has gone through many hundred thousand parts. But fear not, it is not coming out in many volumes but in just one small collection with cover design by a talented lady in Ireland, published by a small but reputable (and no doubt talented) publishing house in Singapore, and a cartoon of me on the writer’s bio page was drawn by a talented but no small cartoonist called Lat; and it is even embellished with photographs sent in by readers from as far away as New York and Canada. I am, needless to say, over the moon.

[Source: Kecek-Kecek – On Trengganuspeak and the Spirit of Trengganu]

The blook (book from blog) is what The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does to AngkaSawan (Epileptic Figures) as what it does to the Ganu(s). Appreciating humour with philosophical elements, knitted with ‘foreign’ dialects (thank you Babel Fish) and immersing in nonchalant culture without the needs of a towel, unless you’re at the beach.

Just what I need now — books and towel — at Pulau Perhentian.

Ciao.