Wong Phui Nam
Wong Phui Nam (simplified Chinese: 黄佩南; traditional Chinese: 黃佩南; pinyin: Huáng Pèinán; Muslim name: Mohamed Razali; September 20, 1935–) is a Malaysian economist and poet.
Born in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, the son of Chinese descendants. He was educated at the Batu Road School and the Victoria Institution. He received his college education at the University of Singapore, earning a B.A. in economics. He was involved in the student-founded literary magazine The New Cauldron and was co-editor of two poetry anthologies from the university.[1]
Since his graduation, Wong Phui Nam has worked in banking and development financing.[1] He is also a noted anglophone poet[2] and several of his poetry collections have been published, beginning with How the Hills are Distant in 1968.[3] Scholar Leonard Jeyam has argued that with the publication of several notable poetry works by Wong Phui Nam in the 1980s and 1990s, Malaysian poetry in English, once an “underrated genre,” “underwent a new surge of interest.”[4] In June 2006, his first play Anike was produced by Maya Press.[1]
In 2013, he published the final version of The Hidden Papyrus of Hen-taui, a poem about the spiritual and ecstatic experiences of a neophyte priestess in ancient Egypt. Yeyam has claimed that here Wong successfully “eschews the postcolonial poetic space of contemporary and historical Malaya but, instead, chooses to delve into the possibilities of discovering a more transcendent world in the burial and funerary mythmaking of ancient Egypt.”[5]
Personal life
Razali Wong Phui Nam also father to Shaarin and Qushairy (Chi, Qi Razali) Both begin their career in music industry as drummer for blackrose (shaarin) and OAG (Qi) before embarked new journey as sound engineer, TV producer for the former and TV host, acting for the latter.
Bibliography
- Anike (2006)
- An Acre of Day's Glass: Collected Poems (2006)
- Against the Wilderness (2000)
- Ways of Exile (1993)
- Remembering Grandma and Other Poems (1989)
- How the Hills are Distant (1968)
References
- ^ a b c Quayum, Mohammad A. (2007). "Peninsular muse: interviews with modern Malaysian and Singaporean poets, novelists and dramatists". Modern poetry. 2. Peter Lang: 71. ISBN 3-03911-061-6.
- ^ Lim, Shirley Geok-lin (January 2007). "Sparkling Glass". Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. 6 (2). Retrieved 2011-02-14.
- ^ Patke, Rajeev S. (1998). "The Poet in Malaysia: Wong Phui Nam, Muhammad Haji Salleh". Contemporary Postcolonial & Postimperial Literature in English. Retrieved 2011-02-14.
- ^ Leonard Yeyam, “‘[T]he most underrated genre’: Malaysian Poetry in English in the 21 st Century,” Asiatic 12, 2018, 125–136 (125).
- ^ Leonard Yeyam, “‘[T]he most underrated genre’: Malaysian Poetry in English in the 21 st Century,” Asiatic 12, 2018, 125–136 (130).