Pak Said's second book now out in circulation

Dear Yin,

This is the book cover of Said Zahari's second memoir, Dalam Ribuan Mimpi Gelisah (Kuala Lumpur, Utusan, 2006). It is already available in major bookshops.

I think you should form a study group among intellectually like-minded young friends to share thoughts and exchange opinions after reading the book.

Of course, all published books, including MM (formerly PM and SM) Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs, are publicly open to rational discussions and critical reviews in this blog, malaysiakini or elsewhere.

The book covers a wide range of topics and themes in Malaysia and Singapore since 1963, the year Said was detained without trial. It contains many vivid recollections of physical and psychological torture of political prisoners and the effects on them, especially Lim Chin Siong, a co-founder of PAP who later left to lead the Socialist Front.

His and many of his friends' detentions without trial attracted the attention of not only global human rights organisations like the Amnesty International but also Carter's administration in the United States which sent an official State Department delegation to Singapore. The episode is, of course, recorded in this book.

The woman whose picture appears in the cover is Said's brave wife, Makcik Salamah (may God bless her soul) who suffered so much - but also showed so much courage and fortitute even many men lack - during the 17 years of her husband's detention without trial.

Spore's communist 'threat' - was it real?
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/48338

Ex-detainee: Anwar’s incarceration a ‘national tragedy’ (Part 2)
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/22392

Said Zahari: Read Chin Peng’s memoirs with open mind (Part 1)
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/22390

Said Zahari, the man
http://www.sfdonline.org/zahari/zahari_bio.html

Sin Chew Jit Poh's 2006 interview with Said Zahari (in Chinese)
http://life.sinchew-i.com/content.phtml?sec=107&sdate=&artid=200602141335

Dark Clouds at Dawn: A Political Memoir
http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/getTitle.cfm?SBNum=31596

Important Books with a Tale to Tell
http://www.aliran.com/monthly/2001/11g.html

Said Zahari's long nights
http://kyotoreview.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/issue/issue2/article_226_p.html

Dark Clouds at Dawn: A Political Memoir
http://www.jamesgomeznews.com/article.php?AID=142

Said Zahari and Singapore’s four presidents: the Left’s history
http://www.jamesgomeznews.com/article.php?AID=226

Zahari: Prison didn't shut him up
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw01/010705r1.htm

Ex-detainee Zahari to launch book
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw01/010606sz.htm

To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew's Prison
http://www.jamesgomeznews.com/article.php?AID=27

Comet In Our Sky
http://www.kinibooks.com/product_info.php?cPath=38&products_id=290

Comet in Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong in History
http://www.sfdonline.org/ChinSiong/comet2.html

Creating free spaces and alternative ideas
http://www.aliran.com/monthly/2005b/9h.html

Decline of the Malaysian press
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/22127

Singapore - republic of fear
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/36183

Singapore - a modern 'dictatorship’?
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/36146

Insider account of ties that failed to bind
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/39994

Ousted! But still waiting to enter
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/38630