Malaysian poet and writer Salleh Ben Joned is an iconoclast – an incendiary critic with satirical wit. Now nearly 80, he’s become a bit of an underground ‘legend’ among a younger generation of artists and intellectuals. In Part 1 of this two-part documentary series, Salleh’s eldest daughter Anna told us about the influential decade her father spent in Hobart from the early ‘60s. In this episode she’ll chart her father’s return to Malaysia. Having blossomed into an ardent champion of free expression, how would Salleh carve out a creative and intellectual life for himself in his increasingly conservative home country? And how would Anna navigate the extreme emotional highs and lows of her father’s journey?
Salleh Ben Joned: A Most Unlikely Malay - Part 1
This documentary is dedicated to Halimaton Attan, the late wife of Salleh Ben Joned and mother to Hawa and Adam Salleh.
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Guests (in order of appearance)
Raman Krishnan
Muhammad Haji Salleh
Dawn Morais Webster
Sabera Shaik
Johan Jaaffar
Amir Muhammad
Kee Thuan Chye
Other acknowledgments
Readings by Qahar Aqilah of excerpts of poems, essays and columns from the following two of Salleh’s books:
Sajak Sajak Saleh: Poems Sacred and Profane
As I Please: Selected Writings 1975-1994
Extra readings by Claudia Taranto and Bernice Chauly (at If Walls Could Talk poetry collective, Kuala Lumpur)
Thank you also to Natasha Mitchell, Laurel Cohn, Sheila Rahman and Martin Harris.
Excerpts of music from the following artists were played in this documentary:
Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny
Delojaan
Dion
Ella Fitzgerald
Indian Ensemble
Janis Joplin
Muddy Waters
Nina Simone
Orchester der Deutschen oper Berlin
Orkes Saiful Bachri
Wilbur de Paris & Jimmy Witherspoon