By Dr Rahim Said
There is something romantic about the image of a writer sitting alone in a Paris café, nursing a cup of coffee, scribbling away in a notebook, occasionally looking up at the passing crowd as though the next great literary idea might be walking down the pavement.
Ernest Hemingway did it. Decades ago, Paris was his playground, his workplace and, presumably, his escape from people who had nothing better to do than interrupt a writer at work.
He apparently chose La Closerie des Lilas partly because few people he knew ever went there. An ingenious arrangement. A writer needs inspiration, certainly, but sometimes he needs nothing more than the absence of acquaintances.
However, one nuisance he could not escape was an acquaintance who would sit beside him and talk endlessly, apparently oblivious to the fact that Hemingway was trying to write.
Some things never change. Even literary giants have to contend with people who mistake a café table for an invitation to a committee meeting.
I have my own version of Paris. It is in Kuala Lumpur.
I do not have the Seine flowing past my window, nor do I have the luxury of pretending that every cup of coffee is part of some grand literary ritual. My literary geography is considerably more modest, and considerably closer to home.
Between October 2025 and November 2026, I have spent many mornings and afternoons at BaD Scones at KLGCC Mall, conveniently located near where I live.
It is not particularly famous as a literary destination. There are no brass plaques commemorating writers who once occupied its chairs. Nobody has written a guidebook recommending it as the birthplace of a Malaysian literary masterpiece. And I seriously doubt that tourists will be making pilgrimages there to photograph the table where I sat.
But something rather worthwhile has happened there. Over the past year, I have interviewed two residents whose lives are the subjects of biographies I am writing. One is a judge, the other a former banker.
The resulting books are titled Unfinished Judgment and Unfinished Verdict.
Both are scheduled for launch this year. So, if you happen to be interested in the lives, careers and experiences of two men whose stories deserve to be told, please join us at the launches. You might even discover that some of the most interesting chapters of a person’s life are written long after he has left office.
Meanwhile, my other literary headquarters remain Huckleberry in Bukit Damansara, where I continue writing my columns for Newswav. Over the past year, I have also made the Huckleberry branch at KLGCC Mall another regular workplace.
Between BaD Scones and Huckleberry, I have managed to conduct interviews, develop biographies, dictate ideas, write columns and indulge in the occasional observation of human behaviour.
The coffee is not always memorable. The surroundings are pleasant enough. The chairs are comfortable, the service is reasonably accommodating, and nobody has yet demanded that I surrender my table because I look too much like a man who has overstayed his welcome.
I suppose that is my version of literary luxury.
I am not Hemingway. I do not drink whisky while contemplating the Spanish Civil War, nor do I have a Parisian literary circle waiting to discuss the meaning of life over dinner. My concerns are more Malaysian: politics, race, religion, politicians, human vanity, social pretensions and the extraordinary ability of ordinary people to behave irrationally while believing themselves perfectly sensible.
I am also 80, which gives me a considerable advantage over younger writers. I have had more time to observe human folly, although I cannot claim to have become immune to it.
Occasionally, I come across articles celebrating the eight great cafés where famous writers produced their award-winning books. There is something wonderfully seductive about these literary pilgrimages. We are invited to imagine Hemingway, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and other literary personalities sitting in their favourite corners, transforming caffeine and cigarettes into literature.
But I wonder how many aspiring writers visit these establishments hoping that some of the literary magic might rub off on them.
Perhaps they believe that sitting in Hemingway’s chair will make them write like Hemingway.
I have news for them. Sitting in a famous café does not make you a famous writer. Neither does ordering an expensive coffee, carrying a leather notebook or looking thoughtfully at a blank page.
If it did, Kuala Lumpur would have produced several Nobel Prize winners by now. And let us not forget the other essential ingredient: actually writing something.
I have no illusions that BaD Scones or Huckleberry will ever appear in a literary guide to the world’s great writing cafés. Nobody is likely to install a brass plaque announcing that Mihar Dias once occupied table number whatever while producing a column that attracted millions of views.
Nor am I expecting a queue of literary tourists to form outside these establishments. Frankly, I would prefer it that way.
Like Hemingway, I value a little peace. The difference is that I am not particularly worried about protecting my literary reputation. I am more interested in protecting my coffee, my table and the precious few hours available before somebody decides to join me for a conversation that has no discernible ending.
There is a lesson here for writers, and perhaps for everybody else. You do not need to live in Paris, drink in famous establishments or surround yourself with literary celebrities to produce something worthwhile. You need curiosity, discipline, experience and somewhere comfortable enough to sit down and get on with it.
The café is merely the setting. The writing is the business. So, Hemingway had La Closerie des Lilas. I have BaD Scones and Huckleberry.
He had Paris. I have Kuala Lumpur.
And while he may have had to fend off an acquaintance who talked too much, I have spent a lifetime listening to people. Some of them have even given me material for my columns.
Perhaps that is the difference between us. Hemingway wrote about the world he encountered. I write about the world I have encountered, particularly the Malaysian variety, which is often stranger than fiction.
If you happen to see me at BaD Scones or Huckleberry, do say hello. Just remember that I may be working. And if you want to be immortalised in one of my columns, by all means, keep talking.
WE