Translation Tuesday: Shadow Puppets by Wong Yoon Wah

Several identities are scrutinised in this four-part poem by Malayan-born poet and critic Wong Yoon Wah

By Wong Yoon Wah and Theophilus Kwek for Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote, part of the Guardian Books Network

The stories told with Southeast Asia’s shadow puppets, better known in the region as ‘Wayang Kulit’, range from adaptations of ancient epics to familiar, domestic sagas. This poem was written in 1977, when the Malayan-born Wong Yoon Wah (by then an outspoken scholar, critic, and award-winning writer) was appointed Director of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang University – just as higher education in Singapore was experiencing a period of upheaval. Here, Wong holds his own several identities up to the light, and a candid sense of his inner self shines through.

—The editors at Asymptote