PETALING JAYA: It was 10 years ago when creative director Tan Jit Seng felt inspired after reading a news clipping.
It spoke of a Dayak mother who had to carry her sick child on her back through the jungles of Sarawak to go to the general hospital.
“It shook me to the core, thinking of this mother’s love and sacrifice for her child,” he told theSun at publisher Gerakbudaya’s premises.
The story inspired him to approach and understand the Dayak culture and folklore, a subject that was almost foreign to him.
It took Tan three years to draft and conduct research on the tribe, often working late nights sifting through literature books.
“In the first three years, I completed half the book. It got extremely difficult. I started to talk to more people and they were generous in sharing their stories. Some could even induce nightmares,” he said.
The mental strength to complete the book took a toll on Tan until he decided to temporarily “abandon” the manuscript for seven years.
By chance, he came across a file on his computer that prompted him to pick up where he left off, and subsequently took him a mere three months to complete the book.
“I’ve lived through the characters. If they live or die, I’d shed a tear for some characters that had to be ‘killed’,” he said.
The end result was his first full-length horror fantasy novel called Abandoned Gods, which is a story about Nira, a mother who trekked the interiors of Sarawak with her sick child Aji Riwut.
The protagonists meet demons, spirits, ghosts and ghouls of Dayak lore, and receive boons from the forgotten gods of Nira’s Kaharingan faith.
Set in the days of the headhunting era, they are caught in an epic tripartite war between the bunsu antu animal spirits, antu utai tumboh plant spirits and the antu gerasi huntsman ghosts.
Tan pointed out that the tribulations faced by mother and son in the book are intended to make one feel as if they are the characters themselves.
“I want the readers to invest emotion into the mother and child,” he said.
On how he sharpened his craft, Tan recalled a time in primary school where children were encouraged to tell their stories to their classmates.
“The teachers were impressed, telling me that I’d be an author. I didn’t expect that it would come true.”
Having tested his mettle in co-producing an English comic book entitled Heroines of Darkness as a teenager, he then ventured into writing children’s books and short horror stories.
Tan had chosen to focus on the Dayak community as he believes they are under-represented in Malaysian literature.
In applauding Tan’s achievement, Gerakbudaya’s head of publications, Jason S. Ganesan, expressed hope of promoting more local talent, especially those from the Dayak community.
The launch of Tan’s book is scheduled to be held on Sept 3, at No. 2, Jalan Bukit 11/2, Petaling Jaya.
