INK-CANTATIONS: Written Self-Portraits from Borneo

Ink-Cantations aims at linking the realms of ancient oral traditions and contemporary inscribed text. The word “ink” represents the written word while “(in)cantations” represents the vital pulse of orality. This book gathers works by contemporary writers, storytellers, and poets of Sabah and Sarawak who are in conversation—directly or indirectly—with the oral tradition. Featuring poems, short stories, personal essays, and excerpts of oral literature in local languages, Ink-Cantations looks at how contemporary writers and poets of Borneo respond to, reinterpret, or reject their inherited oral traditions.