MIRI: The Pegari Iban Production (PIP), a company owned by an enterprising businessman Johnny Chuat, specialises in the production of Iban novels.
It recently released two books, Ai Ditetak Enda Putus (‘The River Cannot Be Cut Off’) by Janang Ensiring and Terutu Jemu Ambun Lemai (‘Evening Dew’) by Jantan Umbat.
“So far there are 3,000 copies printed for each of the novels, under a PIP subsidiary company Borneo Media Solutions (BMS), and are now available in bookstores in major towns in Sarawak,” Chuat disclosed to The Borneo Post here recently.
In this context, he invites writers of Iban novels to get in touch with him, assuring them that they would get lucrative royalties in return.
Besides novels, BMS is also working on Iban-Iban dictionaries that are being compiled by Chuat and another writer Nalong Buda.
“As of now, they are 80 per cent completed and are expected to be published soon,” Chuat said on the latest development of his venture.
He added the dictionaries are different from other Iban dictionaries as they contain staunch Iban words and scientific names with in-depth meanings such as of the names of certain trees, wood, roots and grasses.
Chuat said the dictionaries would be much lighter and handy to carry in a bag and also most suitable for schoolchildren.
On his next project, Chuat said: “I hope to publish more reading materials in Iban like reference books, magazines and story books in the future to be in tandem with BMS’ vision to preserve and protect the Iban language from extinction.”
He regretted that the younger generation these days had too much external influence and tended to mix languages, instead of using pure Iban language.
As such, he fervently hoped the publication of his dictionaries could help protect the language.
Meanwhile, according to Chuat, PIP had also published reference books for college and university students and an Iban magazine called Pegari.