CHIEF Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor urged literary enthusiasts to leverage Sabah’s beauty and diversity to produce high-quality work.
He said this is in line with the State Government’s commitment to always support the effort to promote the arts and culture as well as traditional customs of the State’s local community.
“Sabah is very vast and rich in culture and customs. This State alone has 35 ethnic groups and 217 sub-ethnic groups that speak more than 50 languages and 80 ethnic dialects.
“Literary fighters and culturalists should make full use of that advantage to produce beautiful and high-quality work.
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“It is hoped that this event can raise the art, literature, language and culture of Sabahans to the national and global level,” he said when launching the 19th Literary Day at the Promenade Hotel, Kota Kinabalu, on Sept 30.
Hajiji said books such as poetry anthologies, collections of short stories and novels, for example, are literary materials that have a great influence on society, especially if the author is a distinguished writer.
He hoped that more writers would make a name for themselves and be ranked among distinguished writers and poets such as Hasyuda Abadi, Jasni Matlani, Juri Durabi, Siti Rahmah G Ibrahim and Abdul Karim Gullam.
Hajiji said artists and poets in Sabah are further supported by the Sabah Cultural Board’s seven identified priorities in the cultural development of Sabah’s various ethnicities.
These include digitisation of cultural arts or eCulture, integrated cultural tourism, cultural preservation, strengthening of ethnic relations, cultural research and documentation, cultural arts development and intellectual property protection.
“I am confident that language and literature activities in Sabah will continue to shine because we have a body that is actively fighting for language and literature,” he said.
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