The Principal Girl: Feminist Tales from Asia is an anthology of short stories from Malaysia and Singapore, edited by Sharifah Aishah Osman and Tutu Dutta. It is a collection of eighteen stories, in two hundred and twenty two pages, revealed by authors from Malaysia, Singapore and diaspora.
In pantomime, as in life, young females have been frequently required to dress as males to be recognised for their abilities, chiefly as the ‘Principal Boy’ or ‘breeches parts’. In a more enlightened age it may have been ‘The Principal Girl’. Sadly the ‘Principal Girl’ has often existed only as the love interest for the Principal Boy/hero/rogue. Famous girls as boys have included the likes of Marie Lloyd, the Queen of the Music Halls, and Dorothy Ward, for pantomime is a topsy turvy world of gender reversal with women as men and men as women (including ‘Pantomime Dames’ such as Dan Leno’s Widow Twankey). The 18th century began the tradition of women dressing as men on stage. Before which most roles, be they male or female, were performed by men. A century later and Madam Vestris (Lucia Elizabeth Vestris) was making her name in gender swapping roles and rose to become a theatre producer/manager.
I confess that it was the striking blue, practically Gauguinesque, cover by Farisya Faizal which initially caught my attention. A puzzled, or was that surprised, female face, her hair adorned with flowers, shone from a background of tropical leaves from either Gauguin’s Marquesas Islands, or Penang. Next, the text - ‘Feminist Tales from Asia’ had my curiosity well and truly piqued,. Those words encapsulated promises of short stories viewed from a very different perspective.
I noticed the name Preeta Samarasan, and then, like a puzzling pantun, everything clicked into place. Samarasan (author of ‘Evening Is The Whole Day’) has been the public face of Malaysian feminism for some time; quietly setting writing and feminist discourse standards for the region. Tutu Dutta (coeditor of this anthology, along with Sharifah Aishah Osman) remains a leading figure in Malaysia children’s and young adult books, and has produced myriad mythic tales for our delight and delectation. Both women are fine examples of strong, dare I say intrepid, females and are ‘Principal Girls’ themselves. Not in any secondary sense, you understand, of being reliant on a love interest, but prime (of first importance), able, resilient and tenacious enough to forge their own heroic paths. And thus, as it turned out, were many of the characters in the eighteen stories.
Heroic females are not at all unfamiliar. In the West. Author Maureen Murdock has countered many male myths with her ‘The Heroine’s Journey’, including that of Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero with a Thousand Faces’ within his ‘The Hero’s Journey’ and concept of a ‘monomyth’. Contemporary writers like Margaret Atwood, (The Penelopiad), Judith Butler (Antigone’s Claim) and the great female philosopher Helene Cixous (The Laugh of the Medusa) have all delved into what had previously been male myths. However, coming from the East, the stories in ‘The Principal Girl’, (situated in a frequently misunderstood and oft times overlooked South East Asia and its diaspora), enhance our understanding from this newer perspective of storytelling, within a fresher understanding of equatorial gender relations.
Just as an anthology such as ‘The Principal Girl’ cannot contain all short stories currently written, so this review is selective too. Joyce Ch’ng’s ‘Reborn’ aptly begins this fascinating anthology. It is a carefully crafted tale combining myths from the East (Feng Huang), West (Phoenix) and from Egypt (Bennu), with a soupçon of Ancient Greek philosophy. I’ll not give the plot away, but say that it is a beautiful narrative deserving of a greater word count. The story drips with poetic depth, is captivating and over a greater distance may even prove to be charming, literally.
Then, on page twelve, the reader wakes up to the shock of Preeta Samarasan’s pointed, and maybe poignant, words in ‘The Girl on the Mountain’. It is as if Angela Carter, that doyen of adult fairy stories is reborn for, to quote Samarasan’s own words back to her, she is ‘a girl who dares to say what she thinks’. Like Carter, Samarasan infuses new spirit into what could have otherwise been just another strong-willed princess (male) fantasy.
For a third story, I have chosen Golda Mowe’s ‘Under the Bridge’. Mowe is Sarawakian of both Iban and Melanau descent, and has written much of Iban legends and superstitions. Her story in this anthology is no disappointment. It is a cautionary tale of identity and ego, best read to find out more.
Shalini Nadaswaran’s romantically moral tale of ‘An Epic Misunderstanding’ completes my quartet. It is also the final story in the book. I have to confess that I did find it irksome, and disruptive, to have to rush to the glossary at the story’s end to find translations for Tamil in the text. How to be authentic with your narration while not alienating your reader, is a delicate juggling act. Perhaps footnotes, or simply adding the translation in brackets might help with the reader’s flow. That said, it was an interesting, though saddening, story.
The anthology, as a whole, hangs together well. I eagerly await the next volume, and hope that it too may contain all female voices, for that really, apart from the actual writing, is the strength of this anthology.
Well done the writers, and well done to Sharifah Aishah Osman and Tutu Dutta.
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