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Abstract
Lloyd Fernando is one of three prose writers (the other two being Lee Kok Liang and K.S. Maniam) who should rightfully be considered at the forefront of Malaysian literature written in English. Despite stylistic differences, each of these authors, through their examination of postcolonialism, marginalisation, and the painful quest for cultural and racial unification, has asked significant questions concerning hybrid or ethnocentric identity. All three provide local settings pregnant with oppositions, all three employ shifting natural landscapes in their writing as backgrounds to the issues of multiple identity that have emerged from Malaysia's colonial past and multiracial present. Central to their beliefs, to borrow from Homi Bhabha, is that nation may only be achieved through dissemination and re-birth, and that acknowledgment of difference must lead first to acceptance — and then embracement — of racial and cultural 'otherness'.
Recommended Citation
Wilson, Bernard, 'Do You Wish to Join This Society or Not?': The Paradox of Nationhood in Lloyd Fernando's Scorpion Orchid, Kunapipi, 22(1), 2000.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol22/iss1/7
