I'm pretty sure many of us in Malaysia are familiar with Enid Blyton especially those who grew up in the 70s and 80s. Despite criticisms regarding her work, she has managed to attract a lot of fans from all over the world. Some libraries even withdrew and banned her books due to elements of racism, sexism, separation of class and xenophobia in the books. Her books have been translated into more than 90 languages and here in Malaysia, the task of translating her books into Malay language was initially done by Fargoes Publication. Federal Publications (and a few other publishing houses if I'm not mistaken) took over the job of publishing the translated books later. I started reading the Malay versions of Enid Blyton's books before slowly (and painfully) graduating to the original English versions. I was only a 'kampung' boy whose exposure to English was very limited so a lot of things in the stories totally eluded me. In addition, the setting of the stories was 1940s until 1960s Britain which was totally alien to me. The Malay versions tried to maintain the stories as original as possible but in a Malaysianised context. My favourites have always been the Famous Five (Lima Sekawan) and the Five Find-Outers (Lima Penyiasat Dan Anjing). I did find the Secret Seven (Tujuh Persik) too simple for my liking and I always had difficulty remembering the names of all the seven characters (and who's who) from the series (I still have problems remembering people's names until now). Another favourite of mine is The Secret Island (Pulau Rahsia) from the Secret series. I borrowed most of the books from the school library since I clearly did not have the means to own them. I managed to get some of the books later with my small savings and pocket money. The first Enid Blyton's book that I bought was Lima Sekawan Di Pulau Kanari Lagi (Five On Kirrin Island Again) and that was in 1977. I guess that is why I still treasure a lot of things (especially books, magazines, cassettes and records) from my younger days since they did not come easy to me.
Lima Sekawan Di Pulau Kanari Lagi (Five On Kirrin Island Again)
Lima Sekawan Di Tepi Laut (Five Go Down To The Sea)
Lima Sekawan Riang Merantau (Five Have A Wonderful Time)
To get more information on Enid Blyton's stories which have been translated into Malay, visit this wonderful blog
duneoworld.blogspot.com. Another website that is a must for all Enid Blyton's fans is
enidblytonsociety.co.uk. Have fun going down memory lane!
