SoutheastAsian Archipelago

The Southeast Asian novel has come to be regarded as a problematic category, and justifiably so. Questions of critically representing and talking about the Southeast Asian novel have to ineluctably negotiate a series of issues relating to insider/outsider binaries ofspace, perspective, voice, and representation that trouble the languages of literary creation and criticism. What constitutes a Southeast Asian novel: one written about or set in Southeast Asia, or one written by a Southeast Asian (with all the complexities that that appellation entails)? If we agree on the former, then works such as C. J. Koch'sThe Year of Living Dangerously(1978), Anthony Burgess'sThe Malayan Trilogy(1972), and Noel Barber'sTanamera: A Novel of Singapore(1981) would fall under the Southeast Asian category. It is unlikely that any one formulation will do justice to the longstanding concern about who and what should be regarded as Southeast Asian; therefore, when from time to time reference is made to the Southeast Asian novel, this is simply by way of shorthand to mark off writing by Southeast Asians—specifically from the maritime Southeast Asian nations of Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as Malaysia—from that by non‐Southeast Asians. Two other nation‐states in the region, Brunei and Timor‐Leste, are not discussed in this entry as they do not have autonomous traditions in the novel.