Bandar Seri Begawan - Bruneians have yet to make creative literature as their profession, due to the lack of readers, a Universiti Brunei Darussalam lecturer said yesterday.
Dr Hj Morsidi Hj Muhamad, senior lecturer in Malay literature, said that there are no private publishers who were brave enough to publish literary books because of Brunei's small market.
"Small markets do not allow for the expected gains," he said during a presentation of his working paper "Creative Writing as a Profession", at the Knowledge Convention's Conference of Malay Experts.
"Only the Language and Literature Bureau, a government department, publishes books of literary creativity and authors are forced to wait their turn for their works to be published," he added.
The lecturer from UBD's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences defined profession as an area of employment that requires specialised training, membership or a particular skill, with some professions requiring higher education and specific skills.
"Therefore to be an author, one needs knowledge and special skills, not just talent," he said.
Dr Hj Morsidi suggested that one way of overcoming this problem was to sell locally-penned books overseas, as a first step to distribute these literary books to neighbouring countries and the countries in the Malay archipelago.
The senior lecturer added that making creative literature into a profession is also linked to the media that publishes the works of authors, such as short stories, poetry, traditional poetry and literary commentaries.
"So far, only the Bahana magazine and the Pelita Brunei publishes short stories and poems for adults, while the Media Permata publishes poetry only once a week,!' he said.
Dr Hj Morsidi said that there were several UBD students interested in writing, but the university is more focused on education-related literature, teaching theory and some practical courses that require writing of literary works such as poems, short stories and drama.
After gradution, many of the students only become part-time writers, even though they are interested in creative literature.
"The Language and Literature Bureau has been working to improve the quality and value of literary works by holding workshops to discuss specific and particular works of literature. These efforts should be continued and even increased so that results will be achieved," said Dr Hj Morsidi.
He said that regardless of whether there were professional writers in Brunei or not, it is possible for someone in Brunei to take up writing as a profession, if efforts were made.
Dr Hj Morsidi's working paper also discussed the role of creative literature in the pre-Islamic era until the present, explaining that professional literary works existed before the arrival of Western colonialism.
He said that it is also expected that today's writers will continue to produce good quality work that has intellectual value in the hopes of achieving the objective of making writing creative literature as a profession.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times.
Source: http://www.brudirect.com
Dr Hj Morsidi Hj Muhamad, senior lecturer in Malay literature, said that there are no private publishers who were brave enough to publish literary books because of Brunei's small market.
"Small markets do not allow for the expected gains," he said during a presentation of his working paper "Creative Writing as a Profession", at the Knowledge Convention's Conference of Malay Experts.
"Only the Language and Literature Bureau, a government department, publishes books of literary creativity and authors are forced to wait their turn for their works to be published," he added.
The lecturer from UBD's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences defined profession as an area of employment that requires specialised training, membership or a particular skill, with some professions requiring higher education and specific skills.
"Therefore to be an author, one needs knowledge and special skills, not just talent," he said.
Dr Hj Morsidi suggested that one way of overcoming this problem was to sell locally-penned books overseas, as a first step to distribute these literary books to neighbouring countries and the countries in the Malay archipelago.
The senior lecturer added that making creative literature into a profession is also linked to the media that publishes the works of authors, such as short stories, poetry, traditional poetry and literary commentaries.
"So far, only the Bahana magazine and the Pelita Brunei publishes short stories and poems for adults, while the Media Permata publishes poetry only once a week,!' he said.
Dr Hj Morsidi said that there were several UBD students interested in writing, but the university is more focused on education-related literature, teaching theory and some practical courses that require writing of literary works such as poems, short stories and drama.
After gradution, many of the students only become part-time writers, even though they are interested in creative literature.
"The Language and Literature Bureau has been working to improve the quality and value of literary works by holding workshops to discuss specific and particular works of literature. These efforts should be continued and even increased so that results will be achieved," said Dr Hj Morsidi.
He said that regardless of whether there were professional writers in Brunei or not, it is possible for someone in Brunei to take up writing as a profession, if efforts were made.
Dr Hj Morsidi's working paper also discussed the role of creative literature in the pre-Islamic era until the present, explaining that professional literary works existed before the arrival of Western colonialism.
He said that it is also expected that today's writers will continue to produce good quality work that has intellectual value in the hopes of achieving the objective of making writing creative literature as a profession.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times.
Source: http://www.brudirect.com
