Who wrote A Yellow Sleuth?
- Who wrote A Yellow Sleuth?
Who wrote A Yellow Sleuth?
While fossicking around in the basement of a bookstore in Paris a number of years ago, I came across a ratty looking copy of a book entitled Souvenirs d’un Agent Malais. The author, named as Nor Nalla, was described as a Detective-Sergeant in the Federated Malay States Police. The book was published in Paris in 1934 by the Payot publishing house, and was a translation from an English original. I thought I knew the literature on Malaya in the 1930s fairly well, but I’d never heard of this.
Back in Malaysia I located a photocopy of the English publication in the library of Universiti Sains Malaysia. Entitled A Yellow Sleuth: Being the Autobiography of “Nor Nalla”, the book was published in 1931 by Hutchinson & Co. The author dedicated it to Captain Lindsay Vears (“A.D.C. to his Highness the Sultan of Perak, K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O.”), “who has stood my good friend in peace and war”. The Frontispiece has a photograph of a tall Caucasian and a much shorter man wearing a sarong but no shirt, described as “The Author – and a Friend”, with a comment that “It is interesting to note the differences in stature between the native Malay and his European friend”. [End Page 139]
There, however, the trail went cold, apart from a review published in The Straits Times (published on 6 November 1931) and a brief note in The Spectator (19 December 1931). The reviewer for the Straits Times commented that the book created an intriguing problem of “distinguishing between fact and fiction”. It contains an amazing collection of anecdotes and while many of them ring true, some stretch the reader’s credulity to the breaking point. Whoever wrote the book clearly knew Malaya very well and had great fun retailing the stories. The writing is polished and the author, or possibly the author’s amanuensis, had an exceptional command of the English language. One of the reviewers expressed a hope that someone would play literary detective and find out “to what extent he is spoofing us”.
Around 85 years have passed since A Yellow Sleuth was first published. To my knowledge no one ever responded to that challenge, and the book remains an enigma. NUS Press at the National University of Singapore is planning to re-issue the book in a new edition, and it would fascinating to learn more about the story behind it. [End Page 140]
