Usman Awang


Wan Osman Wan Awang, better known by his pen name Usman Awang, was a Malaysian poet, playwright, novelist and Malaysian National Laureate.

Biography

Born into a poor peasant family in Johor, he graduated from the 6th grade of his local Malay school. During the Japanese occupation, he was kidnapped by Japanese soldiers to Singapore to do forced labour there. After the war, he joined the police force and served in Johore and Malacca from 1946 to 1951.
In 1951, he moved to Singapore, where he initially worked as a proofreader and then as a reporter for the newspaper Melayu Raya. He later joined the weekly Mingguan Melayu in 1952. His first poems and stories were published in this newspaper as well as its daily counterpart Utusan Melayu. One of Usman's most well-known pseudonyms was "Tongkat Warrant", a reference to his days as police officer, combining "warrant" with "tongkat", the Malay word for a police stick.
While in Singapore and within the context of the emergence of Malay nationalism and its struggle against British colonialism, Usman participated in the founding of the literary group Angkatan Sasterawan 50, better known as Asas '50. Inspired by their Indonesian counterpart Angkatan Sasterawan 45 and the Indonesian National Revolution, Usman's group advocated the use of the Malay language as an act of national expression and pushed the concept of "art for society's sake", as opposed to "art for art's sake". The group's output was explicitly left-wing in nature, writing about the poor, the peasantry, the struggle against poverty, and the inequity of landlordism.
He lived in Kuala Lumpur after the independence of Federation of Malaya, where he worked at the national language and literary regulatory board, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka from 1963 until 1985 as one of its chief editors. From 1961 until 1965, Usman served as the first chairman of the literary organisation Pena.
He was also involved in the Keranda 152 movement in 1967, which protested the fact that Malay, the national language, was still not used as a medium of instruction and in the judiciary. The protest resulted in the National Language Act 1963/67, which made Malay the sole official language of the country.
In 1986, he initiated the creation of the Council for Translation and Creative Works of Malaysia, now known as the Institut Terjemahan Buku Malaysia. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Malaya during this period.
On November 29, 2001, Usman died of a heart attack in Kuala Lumpur at the age of 72. He was laid to rest at Bukit Kiara Muslim Cemetery, Kuala Lumpur.

Works

Usman wrote several collections of poetry, more than twenty plays, numerous short stories, journalistic articles, and one novel titled Tulang-Tulang Berserakan. His works have been translated into 11 languages, including English.

Critical evaluation

Soviet orientalist B. B. Parnickel assessed Usman's creativity, writing:
"With rich, euphonious, in a way traditional language, he wrote a lot and enthusiastically about his homeland, love, freedom, and the wave of his emotions affects truly magically his readers."

Legacy

Several places and honours were named after him, including:

Awards