George Town & Its Cultural Vibrancy

George Town was acquired for settlement by the English East India Company in 1786, by Captain Francis Light. In choosing the northeast promontory of the little island of Penang to build the town to serve British trading and strategic interests, Light was hugely cognizant of the geographical advantages the island offered. It had water, it had timber, and it had location. It stands at the northern end of the Melaka Straits, at the southern end of the Andaman Sea, and the eastern end of the Bay of Bengal. And it was sheltered by the peninsula to the east and by Sumatra to the west.

Today, 250 years later, the city of George Town takes great pride in its historical role in trade globalisation and in Malaysian economic modernisation, and boasts a level of cultural inclusiveness and civil activism that is hard ot match, even in the Nusantara region.

Home to many of the first modern schools and associations in archipelago, Penang also saw publishers and printers, and bookstore and schools being established there. As a place where goods and cultures intersect to change hands and minds, its love of education, writing and the printed word—in various languages, Penang over time has become a place where ideas are welcome, disagreements discussed, and diversity celebrated.

The George Town Literary Festival (GTLF) is simply a stark expression and preservation of this legacy, and of how the people of Penang balance the local and the global, and the past and the present.

This very legacy was globally acknowledged in 2008 when George Town gained UNESCO recognition for its living heritage.