Journal of Thailand’s Deep South
A new literary journal attempts to entertain and engage as it explains the troubled region
The first issue of The Melayu Review has the clean sophistication of a respectable literary journal. The layout is unfussy, the photographs black-and-white, and the text in Thai, in shipshape blocks. An editor’s note on the first page quotes Dostoyevsky: “But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
The Melayu Review tells many stories from the Deep South of Thailand, mostly by writers from the region, professional and amateur, in prose and in verse. The first issue of what aspires to be a regular publication, provided sponsorship comes through, is edited by Zakariya Amataya, an award-winning poet from Narathiwat who initiated the idea of a platform for southern locals to tell their own stories in their own words.
Now available for free, The Melayu Review is part of a larger project to research and document the arts and culture of the Deep South, funded by the People’s Empowerment Foundation, Minority Rights Group and the European Union. Some of the articles and stories have been written by students from southern universities who participated in a writing workshop, while others are by scholars, artists and activists whose expertise involves southern issues.
“It’s not a magazine that strives for perfection,” says Zakariya, who lives in Narathiwat. “The principle aim is for the people to share their stories. Some of the writers we publish in this issue have never written anything serious before, but their voices need to be heard.”
The content is divided into fiction, poetry, non- fiction, photography and art. The book covers a range of temperaments and styles, from a poem that reflects the dangers and violence of the three southernmost provinces — an unavoidable subject — to a feature on the traditional kolae boats, from a collection of photographs of life in the region to a short story set during the month of Ramadan.
As a literary-minded publication, The Melayu Review features some fine book-related articles, notably a review of Tearing Apart The Land: Islam And Legitimacy In Southern Thailand, by renowned Thailand scholar Duncan McCargo. It also has a piece on Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish writer, addressing the question of how the celebrated author is disliked by a great number of people from his own country.
But in all, the journal is steeped in the contemplation of the southern narrative, mood and identity. Besides a platform for local writers, the book also expresses a will to communicate with the rest of Thailand through its stories.
“People ask why we didn’t do a website instead of a book,” said Zakariya. “I think the opposite [way]. Now everyone has a website, every publication starts a page, but fewer and fewer people want to do an actual book. And I think there’s still a value in it. I only hope to be able to continue doing it in this format.”
Zakariya and his team confronted another issue upon preparing the project: the language. The Melayu Review is, of course, an English title (it has no Thai title) of a book written in Thai. But in the Deep South, a popular spoken language is jawi, a local tongue that is deeply associated with the Malayu roots of a number of the population.
However, to create a magazine in jawi, the editor explained, would require a lengthy and complicated semantic shake-up.
“The jawi language, though widely spoken in the region, has been frozen,” Zakariya said. “It hasn’t evolved. There was not enough vocabulary, and there are not many new books written in the language — what we have are only old religious books. The Malayu language spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia have evolved so much, with new books and writers and literature. It’s not the case with jawi.
“We have an idea for a jawi-language publication, but that would mean another huge project.”
For now, The Melayu Review represents a region-specific collection of stories and reflections, compiled with a refined literary sensibility. For the editor and his team, it is also a way for southern writers and observers to think hard about their own stories.
“If we can publish one book every year, in 10 years we will have 10 books that present a chronicle of the place.”
Now everyone has a website, every publication starts a page, but fewer and fewer people want to do an actual book. And I think there’s still a value in it
The Melayu Review is a free magazine produced as part of a non-profit project. To receive a copy, the publisher asks for 100 baht to cover delivery. Transfer the money to Krungthai Bank, Big C Pattani branch, account no 763-0-35871-7, then inform the publisher on Facebook: The Melayu Review.