Hanna Alkaf and problems she faced in representing minority groups in mainstream media

When Hanna Alkaf, author of The Weight of our Sky came to our class for an interview, I wondered whether her identity mattered at all in her ability to get her works published since her seminal work is focused on the topic of mental health.

First of all, I would like to say that it takes a lot of courage to be able to present a primary character with mental illness, regardless of whether the author themselves has a mental illness as it varies for most (or so I hear). Secondly and more importantly, I was inquisitive how her book, interesting as it is, would sell. Here, a book representing a small subset of Malays, who are courageous enough to talk about mental illness in their society, are probably targeted; the audience is perhaps Malay as it is the author’s choice to not italicize ‘foreign’/Malay words in her book as they are known by the characters, who are Malay.

Not many would actually publish her books because they either replied with offensive remarks like how the publication has already published for an Asian author, or how they don’t know who will care about this story. I felt that these rejections were probably expected from some publications that did not indulge in the oddity of such a story. Despite these rejections, Hanna found a publisher and published her work, which is now read in many local Malaysian universities. This representation of Malays with mental illness, which would otherwise be rejected in an old Malay society, is today accepted heartily in the curricula of colleges, showing the impact storytelling has, and how society has probably become more receptive towards the idea of mental illness. This depicts, in my opinion, a progressive society that can really take controversial works and analyze them; an example of the latter book could be American Psycho, a book which talked about a serial killer, on which there have been many discussions because of the outlandish nature of the character and how they did not belong.

The main character’s oddity in Hanna’s book is probably what attracts attention because people are naturally curious about what they don’t know, and sometimes, what they don’t want to know. Mental illness, a topic surrounded by controversy and ambiguity, is a great example of such an oddity in a character, and even those with mental illness who probably can’t discuss it because of their social circumstances, will probably read this to, in the author’s words, “distance (themselves) and look at (the experiences of having mental illness) from a different perspective”. This is a great coping mechanism for them and probably opens them up to their friends and families about their mental state.

Hanna’s book is much like what our FIB English class recently read, called The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I think that Hanna and Cisneros are related because of their depictions of minority groups in a published book, which may not have the biggest audience that can relate to the characters in the book because of the differences in their cultures. Each author discusses a minority group that the main character is a part of, which is risky as I have discussed before. Furthermore, each author was a part of the minority group they discuss in their books, which probably gives the author personal experience so the reader can willingly empathize with what the characters probably experienced when they were part of that community. These authors allow others to care about these feelings by helping the readers get accurately introduced to topics they would not get from any ‘mainstream’ or ‘politically correct’ book because of the personal element of the book.