2026-05-21

So, let me tell you a little bit of a story.

My late father, Abdullah Hussain, was a writer — one of Malaysia's National Laureates. He was involved in literature for more than 70 years. He had big ideas, even stronger convictions, and he poured his heart and soul into his writing.

While he was still alive, he once asked me whether I wanted to help him publish his books to the wider world. I declined. Back then, I was far more interested in writing computer programs.

But as fate would have it — or as we say back home, "dah takdir" — after he passed away, and with the support of my family, I became the person who took on the work of consolidating his writing and his intellectual property, so that they could be brought back home to the family. That work has taken eight years so far, and it is still counting. He left behind a lot of work.

For the past year and a half, with the help of AI, I have been slowly translating my father's most ambitious work — a novel called IMAM — into English, for a wider, worldwide audience. I believe he would be happy to share his ideas with the rest of the world.

I don't think my translation does his work justice. The Malay prose is too special; its meaning and its weight cannot be carried over into English so easily. But here we are.

So today I am happy to announce that the book is now published on Amazon Kindle (ISBN 978-629-92287-0-7), and I have enrolled it in the Kindle Unlimited program for the next few months. It is a book of more than 600 pages.

I still remember watching him sit at the dining table every night after dinner, working on this book. He would be at one end of the table, typing on the orange and white typewriter, the finished pages on one side and the crisp blank white sheets on the other. That image of him feels like it was only yesterday. The original manuscript was nearly 900 pages long. No publisher wanted it.

IMAM does not talk about technology, the NASDAQ, how to find your ikigai in a nine-step framework, or even about AI. It is about human beings, and about our relationships with one another, and... well, you will have to read it to find out.

Please honour our memory of our father by reading his work, IMAM, and by leaving a review or a comment. 🙇

P.S. If you are a fan of Abdullah Hussain's work, feel free to get in touch with me and tell me which of his works you would like to read next. I will work on getting them printed, or translated.

Directory: 2026 Tagged: family books translation literature abdullah hussain