Singaporean. Based in USA.
Colours in
Malay
Putih adalah seragam
Aku kena pakai kemeja putih, seluar pendek putih dan kemudian seluar panjang putih selama empat tahun.
Kerana itu aku tak pakai seluar panjang sekarang.
Kemeja putih okay.
Putih kotor kerana susah nak dibersihkan.
Kuning suci.
Kuning adalah masa ku seorang kanak-kanak, berjalan tepi pantai semasa matahari terbenam.
Kuning agama Buddha.
Aku suka Oren.
Dan Merah kerana jubah sami serupa warnanya.
Kerna tulah aku ada banyak kemeja T berwarna oren.
Oren adalah sawah padi, atau yang dekat dengannya.
Aku nak bersara dan jadi sami menanam padi.
Hijau adalah zaman kanak-kanak.
Masa aku membesar, banyak warna hijau di luar bandar sebelum flat dibina.
Aku tak suka kelabu kerana ia warna simen yang merampas waktu kanak-kanak ku.
Thoughts
I just arrived
Or perhaps I arrived
Forever ago
…
In the dead of night, I gather the leaves that have fallen off the tree that is my body.
I inspect crowded veins creeping maps across once-ripened green.
Between fingers I rub amber sap from spores coalescing in moonlight.
I breathe in the almost rotting stench of who I was before.
Leaves brown and yellowed I clutch to my chest as the ink-stained sky watches.
The natural order of my body is its disorder.
The thumping carmine wall of my womb seeks vengeance on my will.
There is no respite from the vacillating constancy of my body.
I am its servant.
…
Pulled into
The inexorable abyss.
Blighted in the unary of pleasure.
There is light here.
I say,
to convince myself.
Zizi Majid (she/her) is a playwright whose plays advocate for a shared humanity. Plays include They Came In The Night (WP Theatre, Pipeline Festival NYC); How to Gild An Eagle (Finalist, Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series; Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference; Semi-Finalist, Athena Project); Return to Fall (Finalist, Blue Ink Playwriting Award; Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference; Semi-Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival); To Raqqa With Love (International Human Rights Arts Festival 2021); Cost (Climate Change Theatre Action Commission 2021); Being in Time (International Human Rights Arts Festival 2019); How Did the Cat Get So Fat? (nominated Best Play, Life! Theatre Awards, Singapore); Yusof (Festival Commission, Pesta Raya, Singapore).
For five years, Zizi was the Artistic Director of Teater Ekamatra (Singapore), successfully breaking into the mainstream during her tenure, tripling audiences and garnering multiple awards. She received the Young Artist Award from National Arts Council of Singapore for extraordinary contributions to Singapore theatre.
Currently, an Instructor of Drama at Syracuse University, she received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was also a fellow of the International Fellows Program at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.