TO revive Malaysia’s reading culture is the mission of the world of words (WoW) KL festival. Over three days, a mixture of people came together, elders and youth, educators and influencers, storytellers and academics, well-known authors, determined to reignite the passion for reading among Malaysians.
The inaugural festival, spearheaded by Sajeet Soudagar, festival director and award winning author, who together with his team, achieved a measure of success with over 1,500 participants. According to Sajeet, the various writing workshops and forums with children’s book authors, short story writing competitions for primary, secondary and university students attracted large supportive audiences and was an outstanding success.
The beginning of a movement
Sajeet worked together with his team of volunteers to come up with a programme designed to capture the attention of all segments of the young Malaysian population.
Each day brought a distinct focus; with day 1 dedicated to schools and children. There was a forum, “Children’s books, what still works”, which featured voices across the literary landscape, with nine year old Navnur and mother Amrit Kaur adding their voices to the discussion. There were short story competitions designed to spark an interest among the children for writing.
Day 2 was dedicated to universities and young adults with also a forum, “How to make literature cool again”, in response to many students who regard literature as an obsolete subject, due mainly in part to lack of exposure in government schools.
The forum explored adapting literature to the modern world and making it come alive with a sense of relevancy for students.
Mark Disney, one of the invited panelists to the forum said: “JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of books can be credited for the resurgence of reading, especially among boys and has done more than any other writer in the last 25 years (to revive reading)” said Mark, who previously taught A-level literature at Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar and also studied literature at Oxford University in the UK.
Mark still teaches part-time at Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar.
Also, there were discussion panels on careers in writing, publishing and digital storytelling, to show that literature is not just a pastime but could be a viable, meaningful career.
Day 3 was organised as a celebration for the literary community with author talks, book launches, panel discussions on publishing and innovation, with practical workshops on storytelling and screenwriting. The day culminated in the WoW-KL awards, where the unsung heroes of Malaysia’s literary world were honoured,
Ninot Aziz was recognised with the “Social Impact in Literature” award and 2 other special honours were given out, one to Prof Emertius Muhammad Haji Salleh with the “Lifetime Contribution to Malaysian Literature Award” and Mohana Gill received the “Special Jury Award” for her lifetime contributions.
