Malaysia’s historical image in literature has almost always been exotically depicted. In some parts of literary works, geographical and physical settings serve merely as a literary device. The overwhelming depictions of characters’ geographical movements and relationship with their cities in the novel, Where the Sunrise is Red sparks the current resurgence to explore the visibility of the female protagonists in terms of their representations in the public sphere. Thus, the extent to which their representations are central to the development of the narration is debatable and to understand this; we must take into consideration Baudelaire’s construction of European urban figure, flâneur, emphasising the female version, the flâneuse. Different locations in colonial Malaysia and England seem to be the manifold literary device with which Yap develops her plots, yet the focus will be only at the crucial public domain that invites stares, barriers, and perceptions through the eyes and feelings of the character. Besides emphasising the characterisation of the protagonist, this setting is also symbolic of the underlying themes in the novel. The various public spheres where the protagonist is physically and visibly connected depict the reconstruction of a flâneuse in Malaysia’s historical representation in literature. Hence, the objectives of this study involve identifying the role of the public sphere and elaborating how these settings serve as the platform for flâneuse’s visibility in the Asian context through characterisation, physical setting, and symbols in the text.

Keywords: flâneur; flâneuse; public sphere; historical fiction; Malaysian literature in English

Bautista, A. A. (2017). A Flâneur in the erotic city: Prince and the urban imaginary. J Afr Am St. 21, 353–372.

Boutin, A. (2012). Rethinking the flâneur: Flânerie and the senses. Journal of the Society of Dix Neuxiémistes. 16(2), 124-132.

Brand, D. (1991). The spectator and the city in nineteenth-century American literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Bryce, E. (2018). Why are they so many pigeons? Live Science. Retrieved February 15, 2020 from https://www.livescience.com/63923-why-cities-have-so-many-pigeons.html

Cai, F. & Calisi, R.M. (2016). Seasons and neighbourhoods of high lead toxicity in New York city: the feral pigeon as a bioindicator. Chemosphere. 161, 274-279.

Ceuterick, M. (2020). Walking, haunting, and affirmative aesthetics: the case of women without men. Aniki. 7(1), 96-114.

Coverley, M. (2012). The art of wandering: the writer as walker. Harpenden: Oldcastle Books.

Chaudhury, S. & Lundberg, A. (2018). Tropical flânerie and the creative Asian city: a perambulation of literature. Living Cities: Tropical Imaginaries. 17(1), 74-89.

Dwyarie, R.D. & Tjahjani, J. (2019). Intercultural concepts in place cliché by Jacques Godbout. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. 23(3), 137-149.

Elkin, L. (2016). Flâneuse: women walk the city in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London. London: Penguin Random House.

Esmaeil, Z. (2019). Ecriture feminine: feminism and nationalism in Seyyedeh Zahra Hosseini’s ‘One woman’s war: da’. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. 25(3), 115-125.

Hahn, J. (2014). From lonely to loony flâneur? The sarakmap in contemporary Hindi literature. Studien zur Indologie und Südasienstudien. 31, 1-25.

Jiguet, F., et al. (2019). Urban pigeons losing toes due to human activities. Biological Conversation, 240, 108241

Ke Wang & Rui Shang. (2019). Study on The Reshaping Form and Function of Urban Culture to Modern Urban Space. Paper presented the Asia International Symposium on Arts, Literature, Language

and Culture (AISALLC 2019). pp. 409-414.

King, R. (2008). Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya: Negotiating urban space in Malaysia. Singapore: NUS Press Singapore.

Lucas, R. (2004). Inscribing the city: A flâneur in Tokyo. Anthropology Matters Journal. 6(1), Retrieved March, 18 2020 from

https://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php/anth_matters/article/view/110/217

Miller, H. (1982). Prince and premier: A biography of Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra. Petaling Jaya: Eastern Universities Press (M) Sdn. Bhd.

Mohamad, M. (2002). “From nationalism to post-developmentalism: The intersection of gender, race and religion in Malaysia,” Macalester International. 12(12).

Nicholson, G. (2010). The lost art of walking: The history, science, philosophy, literature, theory and practice of pedestrianism. Essex: Harbour.

Răşcanu, I. (2018). The status of women between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl. Synergy. 14(2), 221-234.

Richardson, T. (Ed.). (2015). Walking inside Out: Contemporary British Psychogeography. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.

Rizal, Y. (2014). The British legacy and the development of politics in Malaya. Global Journal of Human-Social Science: D History Archaeology & Anthropology. 14(1), 55-66.

Ruzy, S. H. & Fatin, N. S. F. (2016). Psychogeography of Kuala Lumpur in Nassury Ibrahim’s selected poems. Malay Literature. 29 (2).

Sundareson, S. (2014). Walk down memory lane of the historical district. The News Straits Times. Retrieved February 16, 2020 from https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/walk-down-memory-lane-

historical-district

Sayyed, R.M. & Tayyebeh, B. Y. (2018). New norms. Continental Philosophy Review. 38, 199-222.

Tan Twan Eng. (2012). The Garden of Evening Mists. Edinburgh: Myrmidon.

Uma, R. A. R. V. & How, C. (2019). Symbolic representation of Tun Dr Mahathir: Visual analysis of a Malaysian short film. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. 25 (4), 138-

Wolff, J. (1985). The invisible flâneuse: women and the literature of modernity. Theory, Culture and Society. 2(3), 37-46.

Yap, C. L. (2018). Where the sunrise is red. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd.

Yao, S. (2016). The Malayan Emergency: A small, distant war. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.

Zohreh, R. & Seyyed, M. M. (2014). History/ fiction: An intertextual reading of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. 20(1),157-166.