Our September 2021 issue features six writers whose work across four languages represents the cultural and linguistic breadth of contemporary Malaysian society. “Life in Malaysia,” guest editors Pauline Fan and Adriana Nordin Manan write, “is enriching, infuriating, and full of inner contradictions.” In verse and in prose, the writers featured here head straight into this maelstrom. From Jack Malik and T. Alias Taib, poets who take us from the ethereal to the terrestrial, to writers like Fatimah Busu, M. Navin, Alis Padasian, and Ho Fok Song—who provide unfliching portrayals of racism, poverty, and patriarchy, as well as a sensational story of pop singer-cum-ax-wielding assassin Mona Fandey—this month’s contributors do not shy away from their society’s contradictions.