When worlds collide: Malaysian author Zen Cho on romance, London and modern Malaysianisms

With Behind Frenemy Lines, did writing the romance aspect come more easily to you?

I’ve always enjoyed writing romance, but it was new centering the emotional plot, whereas with fantasy, you have more of an external plot rather than one that’s strictly focused on the development of a particular relationship. Even though I would say most of my fantasy has been quite focused on fairly personal stakes, they're not ‘Save the empire!’ type books, still it was definitely a shift to really focus on two characters and how they relate to each other and their day-to-day concerns. 

What references did you pull from for Behind Frenemy Lines?

I started watching K-dramas in lockdown, and I really liked the way that they combined really tropey, lighthearted romance with more substantial issues, like corporate intrigue or political corruption. And that’s what I tried to do with The Friendzone Experiment. With Behind Frenemy Lines, it was a slightly different thing. Partly, it was purely pragmatic [laughs]. ‘I only have so much time to finish this book. What I need is a setting that I don’t need to research at all.’ For me, that was a city law firm like the kind that I worked at for 11 years. It became something that felt in many ways, very grounded. I think the main characters both feel like people I might know in real life. 

How did it feel to be able to marry two of your worlds in this novel?

It’s always fun to write about something you know very well and to put in all these inside jokes, things that other people who are familiar with the world will recognise. Although I will say that in the first draft, my editors were like, ‘You have got way too much on the EU General Data Protection Regulation in this. It needs more dating, less data protection.’ You know, working at a city law firm was quite stressful, but it was nice being able to convey that world. 

One thing that is always striking with your work is your ability to capture Malaysian speech in a very natural way. Is there a specific way you go about it?

I’m glad you think so. It’s an interesting one, because I think [Manglish] is really hard to learn how to write, even if you’re speaking it day-to-day. It’s really hard to translate that oral language to written language. And that’s why you do see a lot of Malaysian writers who write very differently from how they might speak. For me, Spirits Abroad, which was my first book, was probably the first time I really got my head around it. A lot of it did come from thinking, ‘How would I say this? Or how would my mum say this?’ And then with each book, you can try something new. I did a novella called Order of the Pure Moon, Reflected in Water, where I wanted them to sound like working class Chinese, but also in a high fantasy setting, and I didn’t want to use lah. What if I just use standard English, how can I signal to readers that they’re actually speaking with a Malaysian accent?

Do you ever get feedback from non-Malaysian writers about the Manglish?

With Black Water Sister, my American editor said, ‘You do use a fair number of non-English terms in your dialogue. Do you want to include a glossary?’ I did give it some thought. I asked Malaysian readers what they thought, and most people said, ‘You know, if we can understand when Edith Blyton talked about tongue sandwiches, without explaining what those were, we feel that readers from other countries should be able to understand our speech.’ And most of the feedback, I have to say, has been positive.

What are you working on currently?

I have had a historical fantasy idea in mind for quite a few years. It’s inspired by late 19th century, early 20th century China. It's about an uprising that goes horribly right.

Do you have a favourite amongst your work?

The one that I tend to recommend as an introduction is Black Water Sister. I always think with my work, I’m trying to write something that nobody else would or could write. And this book is very specific to me. I feel like it was the one time I achieved a combination of subject matter, world, plot and it all came together.

Are there any other genres you would want to explore? 

I mean, I didn’t really intend to explore romance. Romantasy is very big right now, it would be nice to do a proper fantasy romance. I’ve got more ideas for more fantasy books, more romance books. One that I would like to explore at some point—I’d like to do a comic, like I can't draw, but I’d quite like to write a comic. I really like autobiographical comics, I’m a big fan of Fishball, who writes this comic called My Giant Nerd Boyfriend, which is very cute. 

And finally, what are some of your favourite romance novels to recommend to others?

I really enjoy Helen Hoang, a Vietnamese-American author. My favourite is The Bride Test, which is about a cleaner who moves from Vietnam to America and becomes a kind of mail-order bride of this autistic guy. I also really enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy. It’s a romantic comedy between a writer and a guest star of a show, which is just really fun. It’s not literary exactly, but the prose is good and it's just very fun and easy to read.

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