The Malayan Trilogy, also published as The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy in the United States, is a comic “triptych” of novels by Anthony Burgess set amidst the decolonization of Malaya. It is a detailed fictional exploration of the effects of the Malayan Emergency and of Britain's final withdrawal from its Southeast Asian territories. The American title, decided on by Burgess himself, is taken from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem Ulysses:
"The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world." (ll. 55-57)
The three volumes are:
Time For a Tiger ; 1956
Beds in the East ; 1959
The title,
The Enemy in the Blanket, is a literal translation of the Malay idiom "musuh dalam selimut," which means "to be betrayed by an intimate" (somewhat similar but not quite the same as the English "sleeping with the enemy"), alluding to the struggles of marriage but also other betrayals in the story. The novel charts the continuing adventures of Victor Crabbe who becomes headmaster of a school in the imaginary Dahaga (meaning "thirst" in Malay and identifiable with Kelantan) in the years and months leading up to Malayan independence.
