Szkice malajskie they take their name from a 1895 book of anecdotes by Frank Swettenham, the governor of the British colony on the Malay Peninsula. In the hands of Alfian Sa’at, these sketches turn into micro-stories – snapshots from the everyday life of Malay minority in Singapore and from his native Malaysia.
A little boy falls asleep on the bus with a packet of crispy keropok on his lap. A few pages later his father remembers his son, holding in his hand the ID card with a symbolic hole punched at the government office. A young woman is looking for a job, hoping that she can find a place where she can proudly wear her tudung. A clock counts down the hours, we visit more and more streets, and even at night life goes on – in Singapore, the night time for stories is countless. Alfian Sa’at in Szkice Malajskie allows us to see the real Malays, shows how they live, what they dream about and what difficulties they face every day.
