Results by title

In a complete collection of works by one of Malaysia’s foundational poets, Wong confronts the struggles of cultural displacement.

The poetry of Wong Phui Nam is foundational to Malaysian literature in English. While his early work is often cited in this regard, this edited collection of his poetry and critical essays makes it clear that his lifelong trajectory as a poet and critic is of deep interest. In the Mirror by Wong Phui Nam is a critical exploration of Malaysia's fractured post-colonial identity and literary landscapes.

Like many of his English-speaking peers at the University of Malaya, by the 1960s, Wong became disillusioned with the stark contradictions of writing in a colonial language while striving to build or maintain a national literary tradition. In 1969, when Malaysia's national cultural policy firmly emphasized the primacy of the Bahasa Malaysian language over English, Wong proclaimed, "I no longer wanted to write, at least not in a language I was told was a colonial leftover."

Over the years, however, he returned to poetry in English, often publishing privately. He came to believe that English was the language “most capable of representing our predicament,” given the spiritual and cultural vacuums left by colonialism's great ruptures in the region, and the ongoing neocolonial structure of the state and economy. His work challenges the reader to confront the realities of cultural displacement and the complexities of a multi-ethnic society grappling with its past and future.

This collection includes both recent works as well as some of his earlier achievements, starting with How the Hills are Distant, and also includes a foreword linking Wong's work with contemporary literary work in the region. An afterword by Wong's contemporary, Singaporean literary pioneer Edwin Thumboo, completes the volume.

Carlos Granados and Luis Sánchez-Navarro propose reading the Bible with Christian faith, not as one approach among many, but as a disposition demanded by the New Testament for proper interpretation of both the Old and the New. Even so, the authors’ faith never leads them to dismiss history or to discard the tools of the historical-critical method. On the contrary, these sciences allow the faithful reader to take a holistic approach to biblical truth. When the reader also takes full account of the ecclesial reality in which the Bible was formed and transmitted, and in which it must be read still today, he or she encounters the word proclaimed by the text. Indeed, the words of Holy Writ ultimately proclaim the Word (Logos), Jesus Christ, in whose Spirit they were written. This book’s thirteen essays are grouped into three parts. Part I, “The Church, Living Subject of Sacred Scripture,” takes up a foundational theme of the whole book: sacred Scripture calls for a reading within the community of the People of God under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the same People constitute the living subject of Scripture. In Part II, “Christ, Exegete of the Fulfillment,” the authors focus on the relationship between the two biblical testaments. They argue that the Christian can both respect and venerate the Old Testament on its own terms, even as they find in Jesus, as presented in the New Testament and encountered in faith, the key for unlocking the Old Testament’s deepest meaning. The third and final part of this book, “The Teaching in Benedict XVI’s Verbum Domini,” examines Pope Benedict XVI’s 2010 post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the word of God in the life and mission of the Church. The authors’ years of shared prayer, study, conversation, and ministry have led to this coauthored book bearing witness to that ongoing unity that they live as confreres. Not surprisingly, they frequently reference the same theologians, especially Brevard Childs, Paul Beauchamp, SJ, and Pope Benedict XVI.