Eddin Khoo, of Chinese-Indian parentage, is a poet, writer and translator. He was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1969. He studied Political Thought and Islamic Philosophy at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he was a British High Commissioner’s Chevening scholar.

Following a tenure as an arts and culture journalist, he founded Pusaka - Centre for the Study and Documentation of Traditional Performance in Malaysia (http://www.pusaka.com.my) and the publishing house, Kala, which devotes itself to publishing literary translations from the world’s languages into Malay.

Eddin Khoo has worked intimately with many of Malaysia’s leading traditional artists including shadow puppeteers, musicians, dramatists and dancers. He has focused principally on the state of Kelantan, researching aspects of oral transmission, cultural and religious politics and aspects of ritual in traditional theatre. He is also an apprentice shadow puppeteer and student to the renowned puppeteer Dalang Abdullah Ibrahim, better known as Dollah Baju Merah. He is presently adapting and will perform for the shadow screen Shakespeare’s ‘MacBeth’ in Septemeber 2005.

Eddin Khoo has co-authored (with Farish A. Noor and the photographer David Lok) a book on traditional Malay Wood Carving, ‘The Spirit of Wood’ (New York, Singapore; Charles E. Tuttle, Periplus; 2003).

In 2005-2006, he will publish ‘All the World’s Figures’ ~ a collection of original poems; a translation into Malay of the novels ‘Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree’ by Tariq Ali, ‘When Memory Dies’ by A. Sivanandan and Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ as well as a collection of poems by the American poet Christopher Merrill; translations into English include a collection of poems, ‘Suppose We Were in Sarajevo’, by the Indonesian poet Goenawan Mohamad and the ‘Selected Poems’ of the Malay poet Tengku Alias Taib. He will also continue recording and transcribing ‘My Story ~ The Autobiography of a Shadow Puppeteer’ by Dalang Abdullah Ibrahim.

He is presently completing a book on Muslim Culture, Society and Politics entitled ‘The Muslim Predicament’.

Eddin Khoo divides his time between Kuala Lumpur and the northeast Malaysian coastal town of Kota Bharu, Kelantan.