The Stories We Tell

This podcast, which accompanies the video work The Mountain That Hid by Sim Chi Yin on TBA21 on st_age, is hosted by researcher and curator Kathleen Ditzig. Through the perspective of literature and the work of Tash Aw and Preeta Samarasan, it examines how poetic license and personal family stories can speak to uncomfortable political Cold War histories that are part of nation-building projects in Southeast Asia. Aw and Samarasan are two diasporic Malaysian writers, whose works have included familial and generational narratives to speak to the long reach of the region’s and Malaysia’s racial and political histories. Through their perspectives, this podcast touches on the necessary nuance of considering anti-colonial projects, the radicality of writing family histories, and the necessity of criticality in reviewing national histories and the gaps, erasures, and silences they leave in their wake. Credits: Contributors Tash Aw & Preeta Samarasan Conducted by Kathleen Ditzig Cover image: Sim Chi Yin