Mosque in the Jungle is a fascinating collection of short stories fiddling with horror, fantasy and sci-fi by one the Singaporean pioneers of such genres. As Ng Yi-Sheng, the author of Lion City who wrote the preface, notes – Wok’s writing is not an imitation of Western genres or trends but it draws inspiration from the rich Malay folklore. Wok, contrary to other authors writing in the 50s, was not interested in realistic novels – he was fascinated by all that’s irrational, very often scary and so his stories feature magic, ghosts and criminal puzzles.
The stories were originally written in Malay, in the traditional Arabic script and so the transcription (Malay is commonly written in the Latin alphabet now), translation and compiling this collection is a work of many people. A Mosque in the Jungle is a great anthology by the classic Malay writer, now available for the English reader.
