Dissatisfied with merely reading fantasy and adventures set in Europe or the United States, a number of Australian writers of Southeast Asian descent decided to write their own stories using their own cultural backgrounds.
Raidah Shah Idil was born in SIngapore but spent a good chunk of her growing years in Sydney and currently resides in Malaysia. She has been a big reader since she was young and in her career as a writer has had her works - from nonfiction to poetry - published in numerous media platforms including The Feminist Wire and SBS Voices.
In 2024, Raidah published her first novel targeting middle-grade readers. Her work is titled How to Free a Jinn and it tells the story of a girl of Malaysian heritage who possesses the power to see creatures that are invisible to others and even inherits a jinn from her family.
Many welcomed her work, especially those hailing from Southeast Asia. However, there were also those who were spooked out by the title and suspicions of the novel telling the story of how to free the devil even arose. This was immediately countered by Raidah.
How to Free a Jinn - currently available only in English language version - has been published in Australia, New Zealand, multiple parts of Asia and is slated to be published in the U.S and the U.K
Melati Lum is a Malaysian born and raised in Adelaide. Formally, her educational background is in Law. However, she is also an avid reader from a young age and used to gobble up teenage literature such as The Babysitters Club series or the Nancy Drew Mysteries. As with Raidah, she also wrote adventure stories with a main character who is a Muslim.
She has now published four books under the Ayesha Dean Mysteries series, whose main character is of Indonesian background. The setting in Ayesha Dean Mysteries changes from one book to another, such as Turkey and Portugal.
Melati published the series through Melby Rose Publishing, which she owns. According to her, there had been a period when self-published authors were seen as having a less sophisticated reputation than those who were published through big publishers. However, this is hardly a constant truth.
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