Communicating stories matter when writers highlight the dynamics of mining the most private experiences for material. Whether humiliating or painful, it is often in the hands of writers that stories are made profound, interesting and fascinating. Yet, to readers, vivid scenarios, specific identification, convincing characters and real-life snapshots, just to name a few, present insights into human condition. Malaysian writers who report such investigations describing more than just their own memories and histories include Bernice Chauly and her critically acclaimed memoir, "Growing Up with Ghosts". "Growing Up with Ghosts" begins with a private memory of a four-year-old girl at the freak drowning of her father and gradually unfolds into a patrio/matriographic memoir that recounts the paternal and maternal history of her Chinese and Punjabi ancestries. Using key concepts of memory theory and trauma studies including rememory, postmemory and empathic unsettlement, this article primarily examines the collection of episodic and semantic memory presented in the memoir. The reflexive and often sporadic, chaotic recounts following the death of her father provides a vivid depiction of the experience of post-parental death. The findings reveal how the filial memoir implicates the reader through "empathic unsettlement" of the trauma suffered by the memoirist through acts of memory, rememory and postmemory. The reader also suffers the burden through postmemory in the act of reading the delayed, indirect and secondary memory of the memoirist. Reading a multigenre, multivocal narrative can capture the theme of loss and grief not merely as a form of selfpositioning, but more significantly, as a move towards creating an "identity forging discourse".

Malay cultural identity in Malaysia has historically been wrought by the contradictions inherent in its colonial discourses, and among the Malays themselves -a transition that was made possible by virtue of religion, language, and customs. Now, television fiction (TV fiction) has transpired debates to account for its interconnectedness and Malay identity, moving away from the established works found in most short stories, novels, poems memoirs, and (auto) biographies. Instead, this paper reveals the fragmentations of Malay cultural identity which are not simply about embracing Islam, speaking the Malay language, or believing in the Malay customs, but engage with the figurative crossings of Malayness and un-Malayness in Malaysian popular TV fiction- Julia and On Dhia. Through conversation analysis of transcribed episodes, the ubiquitous alternative Malay identity issues are revealed. Specifically, this research shows that they are inextricably connected to the wider spheres of Malayness through the appropriation of media. While the issues in these TV fiction texts all strive for a degree of negotiated inclusion in their alternative Malay lives, the balance between negotiation of their subjectivities depends on the extent to which they are positioned in a wider socio-political experiences. This study lends a support to the claim that there is a dire need to position these alternative Malay realities across TV fiction in the field of postcolonial literature.

Research by Jiang & Leung (2012) has shown that television fiction (TV fiction) has often been identified as a platform where realities are portrayed. These realities include, but are not limited to, the lifestyles and everyday narrative appeals. In Malaysia, a majority of Malay TV fiction emphasize Malay identities and everyday lifestyles. Such emphases are most clearly expressed in the scripted talk that the characters act out. Despite the importance of the talk, however, a comprehensive and precise understanding of what the talk entails remains scarce in Malaysia. Based on Conversation Analysis (CA) (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008) of 20 relevant scripted talks, we attempt to show that Malay TV fiction constitutes struggles for power and position. For example, we show that power over arguments involves Malays competing for the position of the “dominant knower.” “A dominant knower” wins conversation by employing reasons related to religion, society, and culture over logical bases to settle their disagreements. This study contributes to our awareness on the nature of power and position in the popular culture scene