* Salina *

I don’t believe that I can finish up this novel until at the end of the story.

For a long time, I’ m eager to read this novel till I got the cheapest one in Koperasi HUKM with RM5 only. That one has been translated into English.

You all know, why I was really interested about this novel? It’s not because of the story, plot or it writer A. Samad Said, the one that I respect and proud as Sasterawan Negara.

It’s because I was so wonder why this novel has been discussed so many people and has been categorized has ‘karya agung’. It was one of ‘karya agung’ in Malaysia that has been translated……

The book gives me a deep understanding of Malay society during that time before Independent and at the end of World War II in Singapore and Malaya.

I’m honestly speaking, as ‘orang muda’ I’m not really falling in love with this novel. I’m just read to reduce my ignorance about ‘Salina’.

The author tried to explain about his sympathy for the oppressed classes and the unfortunate victims of fate at the end of war.

The leading character in this novel is Salina, who is actually on of two main characters, the other being the young girl Nahidah.

Salina is a prostitute who supports herself and her lover Abdul Fakar who is a dandy and unemployed parasite. She also supported Hilmy, a student and his mother who really sick.

Salina is a victim, become bad and being prostitute because of the force of circumstances. Same with Nahidah, has been forced to be a waitress by her own stepmother because of money.

That all I can summarize, the Malay folks situation during that time, far from Islamic teaching, influenced by time and circumstances.

"Salina, a significant book published in 1961 bring realism into Malaysian literature with its depiction of the squalid life of people living in a city, their poverty, low standard of living, the congestion and the underlying principles governing their behavior. Salina is not merely an ‘exposure’ of conditions or squalor and privation or what is termed ‘degenerate culture’ but it can also be regarded as an expression of their protest against social injustices."

-Prof Mohd. Taib.Osman, Dewan Bahasa 1974-