Amid rising temperatures driven by El Nino, a new literary anthology offers a refreshing refuge for readers seeking cultural and linguistic diversity. Eternal Summer Notes, published by Shuren Press, is a trilingual collection combining short stories, poems, essays, and translations in English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Mandarin. The anthology presents 15 individual mini-books, each showcasing distinct voices across generational and geographic divides.
Originating from a three-month “cafe writing residency” held at Pohutukawa Coffee in Petaling Jaya in 2024, the project brings together authors from Malaysia, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and the United States. Contributors include Shih-Li Kow, Brandon K. Liew, Wan Phing Lim, Amir Hamzah, Md Fariq Khir, Tedd Denis, Aya Carrim, Haiyan Zhang, and Anna Morgachova, with translations by Jacqueline Leung and Jennifer Feeley.
The collection explores themes such as identity, family, insomnia, and cultural narratives through a variety of genres, incorporating elements ranging from local folklore and art residencies to references like the durian fruit and the film Sepet. Readers can engage with the mini-books in any order, experiencing both the variety and cohesion of the anthology’s diverse literary styles.
Editor Dano Chow highlighted that the residency framework encouraged writers to pursue bold, experimental approaches rather than conventional storytelling. “We wanted to capture the ritual of note-taking and create an intimate space that both writer and reader could fully immerse themselves in,” he said. This concept is reflected in the anthology’s packaging, designed by Where’s Gut Studio, which takes the form of individual notebooks instead of a traditional bound volume. This format aims to foster a tactile, personal interaction with the texts, inviting readers to approach the works as separate zines.
Rather than standardizing the anthology into a single language, Chow intentionally preserved the multilingual nature of the materials to mirror Malaysia’s linguistic complexity. “I wanted to encourage cross-lingual reading, inviting readers to step beyond their comfort zones and encounter works they might otherwise miss, whether in the original language or translation,” Chow explained.
Eternal Summer Notes follows Chow’s earlier work as a translator for the Mahua-to-English short story collection Objects Of Desire, part of a broader effort to celebrate literary diversity and translation in Malaysian literature. Since its release, the anthology has been featured at art book fairs and fanzine events and has gained traction in independent bookstores where its unconventional format stands out.
Chow reflected on the project’s broader cultural resonance: “As Malaysians, we’re always navigating everyday spaces where we constantly hear and interact with languages different from our own. A unitary national identity isn’t something one can easily point to. Instead, Malaysia exists as a subtle trace, captured within the rhythms and multilingual reality of the book itself.”
Further information about Eternal Summer Notes is available at shurenprojects.com.