GTLF—One of Penang Institute’s Two Annual Flagship Events

By Ooi Kee Beng, Penang Monthly November 2025 Editorial

FESTIVALS are basically a picnic at community level, aren’t they? And just like family picnics, festivals seek to bond. Favourite snacks are brought along by uncles and aunties, favourite games are arranged for the children, and favourite drinks in all colours are prepared to avail all who are kind enough to come. There is always hope that distant relatives as well as close ones who live far away will somehow find the time and the impulse to turn up. To enjoy and to add to the enjoyment.

The expectancy is always high. And one hopes the weather will be kind, that all will behave, and that no bad argument breaks out.

Picnics are such optimistic events, come to think of it. A paradise for the multitasker, a dream for those in the family who love to keep connections alive, a time to touch base. Much can go wrong at picnics, no doubt, but they hold so much promise.

Picnics not only seek to reinforce a sense of natural belonging in all who attend, but also offer a rare chance for all to step outside their normal roles, air their minds, and relive some youthful delights. Without being prompted, people come dressed casually, brightly, even outrageously. Daring the weather to be cruel.

Festivals are the same, writ large. They are always optimistic events. All those attending are expected to come with time on their hands, space in their heads, and curiosity in their eyes.

Just as family picnics are usually arranged by relatives with some means, festivals have to be funded in some way, or they have to be commercially viable. The latter means tend to turn them into fairs.

Picnics also need to be repeated, turned into occasional family events.

A good picnic has to end with kind phrases like: “See you again soon”; “We must do this again soon”; “Next time at our place”; “Give my warmest regards to the family”; et cetera. Likewise, festivals cannot be once-off events. They need to become something that drums the rhythm of the community’s year. Just like the mid-autumn festival, Easter, fasting month, new year. Festivals are heritage of the future being made. They are collective identity markers.

Living in a time of great disruptions in lived environments, in global conditions, in career paths, the need for simple social pleasures such as picnics, fairs, and festivals is a matter of psychological health today. No demands, only one’s presence is needed.

Pleasures. That’s a good word. Please, Pleasant. Pleasurable. Pleasing.

Likewise, Presence. Being there. Being here. Being.

Being in a crowd, yet being in your own head—that is what a literary festival can offer.

Literariness is a quality not often recognised as a key element in individual development. In multicultural societies like those in Penang or Malaysia, daily language use tends to be all too functional, and thus not contemplative or philosophical in nature. There is little space for poetry, for quick wit, for enjoyment of a good turn of phrase. We are too busy remembering old books, or books read in school; we are too busy making a living; and we are too busy staying divided, maintaining collective boundaries so as not to get into a violent argument (or get put in jail).

The George Town Literary Festival—which was initiated in 2011—remains a yearly affair that reminds the People of Penang that developing literariness, being literate—is a never-ending project. Our language use is not a matter fully subsumed under, and thus equal to, our ethnic identity. Our personal thoughts are not necessarily the thoughts of our ethnic group.

Besides being this reminder, the Festival wishes to be a platform that offers individuals who love to read, to write, to talk and to listen, a chance to experience the collective freedom all these simple acts provide.

There is no private language. Our thoughts are never only our own. They are continual discussions, be this in oral conversations or in written or posted form.

There are few better places in the region than little, historical and pluralistic George Town where a literary picnic can be held; which the world can participate in; where pretentions can be low but ambitions high.

Lifelong learning means lifelong reading, lifelong writing for some, and lifelong conversations. For such reasons, the GTLF will from now be considered one the Institute’s Annual Flagship Events, the other being the Penang Economic Forum (PEF) held mid-year. The GTLF will express the cultural and intellectual essence of Penang while the PEF will study the economic realities of the state.

Penang Institute has been organising the GTLF since 2024, and it does what it can to encourage lovers of books and lovers of language, wherever they may be based, to take seriously the belief they feel within that they have a lot yet to say and to contribute by reading, talking, writing and discussing.

Literacy, literariness, literature. These are the most basic of human rights. Like picnics.