Al Ghazali Moden berbicara mengenai karya Melayu di The Star

Para guru sukakan buku ini begitu juga remaja. Cuma mereka mahu kulit buku yang lebih segar dan ceria. Saya menggelarkan sahabat penulis ini sebagai Al Ghazali moden. Kerana ceritanya mengenai falsafah hidup dan agama adalah keindahan dalam karyanya berjudul Akademi Kehidupan dan Hidup Sebagai Sebuah Akademi.

Kerana karyanya adalah karya untuk remaja yang mantap isinya dan mencerah pemikiran, saya mencadangkan bersungguh-sungguh nama beliau kepada editor PTS M, Cik Siti Nor Fadilah Salleh untuk membawanya bersama-sama dalam promosi buku Local Author di MPH. Itu adalah penampilan beliau pertama selepas hampir tiga tahun buku di pasaran. Saya percaya buku tulisannya dapat mengubah persepsi hidup manusia sebagaimana saya diubah melalui kata-kata dan bicara dalam bukunya.

Saya optimis, jika diizinkan Allah buku ini dapat membawa nyawa dan harapan baru (Harapan baru?) kepada remaja bagi melihat hidup ini.

Saya lebih gembira kerana berkat kesabaran beliau, akhbar The Star mengetengahkan buku-bukunya dan dirinya dalam ruangan Youth2. Bukan mudah akhbar Inggeris memaparkan karya bahasa Melayu. Saya percaya dengan kemunculan beliau dalam akhbar memberi persepsi positif terhadap kepada karya tempatan.

Saya petik,

Muhamad Syarafuddin Sulaiman’s two back-to-back books were quite well received by readers. Their response has encouraged him to begin thinking of a series of science books for children.

The 24-year-old Psychology student’s Hidup Sebagai Sebuah Akademi and Akademi Kehidupan Untuk Remaja Kreatif, may carry serious titles, but the young writer is quick to assure that he tells his stories in a fun way.

Besides, he basically delved into his inner child, and put into print the questions he was curious about.

“The first book that I wrote was a monologue. It answered the questions that I often ask people and myself “ like ‘Why is there a need for rules?’, ‘Why are we here?’,” says Syarafuddin who used short stories to help him answer those questions.

Syarafuddin admits to getting ideas for the short stories in his Hidup from the Internet and books that he’s read.

“I didn’t plagiarise any of the stories but I rewrote them from my own point of view,” he adds.

For the second book, Syarafuddin travelled to places like Kelantan and Malacca to ask the people there random questions. He then compiled and used their answers as references.

“I’ve heard people saying that youngsters today can’t sing the national anthem. So, I went around asking elderly people to sing Negaraku for me to see if they can do it or not,” he says.

It’s been four years since Syarafuddin wrote his first book. Now and then, he reads them to see if he’s waivered from the ideas he believed in once.

“I preached a lot in Hidup, and there are some parts in it that I wrote, simply because I wanted to write it. Looking back, I don’t think that I support some of the ideas I believed in when I was 20,” says Syarafuddin.

Jika mahu membeli karya Syarafuddin Sulaiman, klik di sini dan di sini. Ini jaminan saya, saudara akan terkejut dengan kematangan pemikiran junior saya ini.

Nota: Gambar diambil dari artikel Writing their stories By Sharmila Nair and Ian Yee, akhbar The Star