Karina Robles Bahrin (Photo courtesy of Epigram Books)
Cover Karina Robles Bahrin (Photo courtesy of Epigram Books)

The first-time novelist and second Malaysian to win this prestigious prize shares more details about the intriguing premise of her award-winning manuscript, The Accidental Malay

On January 22, 2022, Karina Robles Bahrin was announced as the winner of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize for her manuscript, The Accidental Malay. The story is about Jasmine Leong, the heiress of a bakkwa company who discovers she is Malay.

Selected by a panel of esteemed judges including Professor Shirley Chew, Amir Muhammad, Edmund Wee, T. Sasitharan and Margaret Thomas, she was awarded S$25,000 (about RM78,000) as well as a publishing contract with Epigram Books.

Bahrin has previously published short fiction and contributed to a newspaper column before moving to Langkawi to run La Pari Pari hotel and restaurant while spearheading a community initiative to encourage young children to tell stories.

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Dialling in from the sunny island, she tells us all about The Accidental Malay, from what inspired story to when we’ll all finally be able to read it. “Everyone’s been asking me this since I won. I’ve become Epigram’s chat robot,” she laughs. “It’s coming out in July (this year)!”

Your portfolio of published work thus far has been short fiction. This was your first—and very successful, I might add—attempt at writing a novel. What was your motivation for undertaking this challenge?

I’ve always wanted to do it but I never found the time. It was one of the reasons why I moved to Langkawi but what I quickly realised was that running a small business gave me no time for anything else! When the pandemic hit, everything grounded to a halt. We were a tourism-related business so I told myself, if there was ever a time to do it, it’s now—I basically ran out of excuses!

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Why did you want to tell this story in particular?

I’ve wanted to write The Accidental Malay for over 10 years. I myself am multiracial. My mother is from the Philippines—she moved here when she married my dad and became a Muslim. My father is Malay and Muslim but his mother was a Chinese lady who was adopted.  

In my personal experience, as long as one of your parents is Malay, every other part of you is disregarded. For example, people with Chinese and Indian parents would be seen as ‘Chindian’ but it’s not the case for people like me. So there is always a measure of consideration when answering questions about my background. I once described it as ‘walking on a tightrope coated with glass’.

The risk of making a cultural gaff is always there. As you grow older, you tend to ignore it but it’s always there. That’s why I decided to write a novel about that, but from an outsider’s perspective.

"I wanted to explore what happens when you try to impose a certain cultural parameter on a person who hasn’t grown up with that at all."

- Karina Robles Bahrin -

Do you feel any hesitation or apprehension writing about race and religion?

Yes—and I still do! The story might be a little controversial. Jasmine is the heiress of a non-halal industry. What happens when you try to impose a certain cultural parameter on a person who hasn’t grown up with that at all? 

I fully expect there to be some pushback but I don’t think you can run away from that. It is a topic that is personal to me and I have wanted to explore it for a long time. I hope people take it with an open mind and that it encourages dialogue.

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How did you feel when you won the Epigram Fiction Prize?

When I finished my manuscript and tried to get it published, I knew from the outset that the nature of my story would be difficult to market to a Western traditional publishing world because they have their stereotypical notions of what a Southeast Asian story should be. There always has to be a colonial setting or hantu (ghosts).

Literary awards like the Epigram Books Fiction Prize are fantastic and very much-needed in the region to tell these kinds of stories.

Any plans for another novel?

Yes, I have three or four ideas for the next one but the challenge is focusing on just one! With The Accidental Malay, I was so fixated in writing that story because it’s been with me for more than 10 years—I knew exactly what I was going to write.

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