Four books that put you in Brunei. Three are by writers from Brunei and set there, starting with Written in Black and The Witch Doctor's Daughter. The other is a wider pick, by someone who knows the place well.
Little writing from Brunei has reached English readers. Local writers publish much of their work in Malay, the national language, and few of those books have been translated, but a small group of Bruneians now write in English, often through Singapore publishers.
Start with K.H. Lim's Written in Black, a darkly funny novel in which ten-year-old Jonathan slips away from his grandfather's wake to cross Brunei in search of his disowned brother. Kathrina Mohd Daud's The Fisherman King weaves Bruneian folklore into the story of a Water Village fisherman convinced of his royal descent, and her The Witch Doctor's Daughter follows a young woman from Kampong Ayer to her mother's family's longhouse in the jungle. For an outsider's view, Anthony Burgess drew on his teaching years in the country for Devil of a State, a comic novel of a Borneo sultanate.
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Ten-year-old Jonathan slips away from his grandfather's wake on a journey across Brunei to bring his disowned brother home, in a darkly funny coming-of-age novel set in the country's Chinese community.
Fed up with her parents' fake spiritual healing, Safiyya leaves Brunei's Water Village for her mother's family's longhouse in the jungle, in a warm coming-of-age novel set in the 1990s.
A fisherman from Brunei's Water Village returns after eight years away, convinced he can prove his royal descent, as a tale of forbidden love in the palace six centuries earlier unfolds alongside his own, in a novel steeped in Bruneian folklore.
By long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well, or folk tales, poetry and history with a strong feel for Brunei.
A comic novel of a Borneo sultanate, drawn from Burgess's teaching years in Brunei, capturing its court life, religion and colonial tensions.
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