AustLit

'This article investigates the representation of nature in contemporary Malaysian life-writings in English by female writers of Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnic origins. Adibah Amin’s This End of the Rainbow, Christine Ramsay’s Days Gone By and Muthammal Palanisamy’s From Shore to Shore are analysed by contextualizing the use of nature as an element in narrative strategy that indicates a sense of textual commonality. Through an examination of the agency and subjectivity of each protagonist, this article argues that nature is used to forward a homogenizing identity in the Malay nationalist life-writing, and to trace and validate diasporic roots in the Chinese and Indian texts. Despite the nationalist and diasporic attributes of the three texts, which are grounded on the writers’ ethnic differences, the use of nature indicates a common concern and promising future for the development of Malaysian Literature in English.' (Publication abstract)