Professor Dr Malachi Edwin Vethamani is a Malaysian-born Indian professor, poet, writer, critic and bibliographer. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in English Literature, Diploma in Education (TESL), Master of Education in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) from University of Malaya and a doctorate in Literature in English from the University of Nottingham, England. He is a recipient of the Chevening Award (1993-1996), the Fulbright Scholarship (2000) and Sumito Foundation Research Grant (2009). In 2013, he received the Asian Education Leadership Award conferred by the World Education Congress in Mumbai, India and Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA) Special Award for his contributions to teaching English in Malaysia. He is a recent recipient of the University of Nottingham, Vice-Chancellor’s Achievement Award.
He is currently Professor of Modern English Literature at the School of English, University of Nottingham Malaysia. He was the founding dean of the School of Education, Taylor's University and the School of Education, Languages and Communications, Wawasan Open University, Malaysia (March 2009 to Feb 2011). He was with the Faculty of Educational Studies, University Putra Malaysia from 1986 to 2009. He has served in various capacities with other universities. In 2015 he was appointed Visiting Professor at the School of Liberal Arts, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand. He was a Vice President of Asia TEFL from 2008 to 2013. He was the President of MELTA from June 2001 to January 2008.
His most recent publication is Ronggeng-Ronggeng: Malaysian Short Stories (Petaling Jaya, Maya Press), which highlights 60 years Malaysian short-story writing. His first collection of short stories, Coitus Interruptus and Other Stories, was published in January 2018. His second volume of poems Life Happens was published in July 2017, (Maya Press). His first volume of poems, Complicated Lives (Maya Press, Kuala Lumpur) was published in 2016. He has been invited to participate in various international literary festivals. Three of his stories from this collection were reworked as monologues as performed as Love Matters by Playpen Performing Arts Trust in Mumbai in 2017 and 2018. His short story Best Man’s Kiss was reworked into a short play for an event called Inqueerable organised by Queer Ink in Mumbai on 8 September 2019.
He edited a volume of Malaysian poems entitled Malchin Testament: Malaysian Poems (Maya Press, Kuala Lumpur: 2017) which covers a period of 60 years. In 2003, he edited a volume of poems for young adults entitled In-Sights: Malaysian Poems (Maya Press, Kuala Lumpur). He published A Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English (Maya Press, Kuala Lumpur) in 2015. This is the first bibliography to trace literary publications in English by Malaysians, from the 1950s to 2014.
He has researched widely in the area of teaching literature in English and Malaysian Literature in English. He is an internationally recognised teacher trainer and has also carried out training and consultancies for various corporate clients and educational institutions.
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Photo credit: Chris Leong
Posted on 9th December 2019