Aliya Ma Lynn was born in DongHai, a sea port of Jingsu, China. Ma Lynn has worked as broadcaster, news translator, editor and announcer, program and feature talk producer, and VIP interviewer. She was also TV anchor for Radio Malaya and TV Malaysia from 1950 to 1970. As a professor at Nanyang University, Singapore, she served as lecturer of Chinese Languages and literature. Her writings have been published in a number of journals.

Some of her important publications are Xin Jiang Province ( The New Territory) , Huliteratyre, Tia Ying Ma, biography of author’s father, Perkims, Chinese Tales retold, The Beauty of Islam through a Woman’s Eye, L’Etranger de Camu and Prose by Aliya etc.

She has been affiliated to different literary societies also.

Aliya may be called the invisible reader of Kritya as she reads whatever Karen takes printout for her. She has sent beautiful translations and calligraphy of Chinese poems which will be part of Kritya in future issues.


 

April, South China

A green maze of wheat fields
weaves itself in lakes, ponds,
shallow rivulets. Bright yellow
splashes of sweet scent flow
from acres of blooming mustard.


On narrow dividing banks,
leafing willows beckon low.
Under ancient bridges, sleek
sampans sail. Crisp air currents
welcome swallows home. Peach,
plum, cherry flowers color
pavilions, pagodas, old city walls.


I grew here, left young. Decades of
change have flown. The people,
afflicted and heart torn. I stand
watching crows, like black beads,
spray after spray into pink sky.