Try “A Mosque in the Jungle” for interesting ghost stories you’ve never read before. There are 24 non-traditional spins to spooky tales which you’ve never read before in ghost stories. The writer was O. Wok, an ethnic Malay, who was a journalist and man of many trades.
One of the stories, “A Mosque in the Jungle”, is quite probably a classical rendition of common tale narrated by word of mouth.
Before reading this story, I had read a personal blog post by an adventure seeking Malay man. He was with a small group of friends who walked through a jungle at night, seeking thrills. He wasn’t a writer and narrated his encounter in only a few sentences, but they were sufficient to convey the gist of what happened. Since it was a common narrative told by a few people, there could be elements of cultural, religious and folklore interweaved into it.
Finding a mosque in the jungle when a traveler is lost, is like a godsend.
The plot is so common that it must be a cultural and religious folklore. Lonely people see a mosque in the midst of thick jungle. This almost always happens at night. They hear people praying in the mosque. If the same people searched for the mosque in daylight, they can’t ever find it. A mosque in the jungle is like a mirage in the desert. Weary travelers may chance upon it. When they need a refuge, they’ll find it. In the day, when they don’t need a refuge, they’ll never find it.
For the rest of the other ghost stories, they read like the fiction of O. Wok. The book of short stories is an easy read for the most boring of journeys or time. You’ll never put t down.
A Mosque in the Jungle by Othman Wok. I may get a small commission if you buy via this link. But this is not the reason why I’ve written this book review. In the first place, I bought a copy because I read of its reviews by other readers. I’m also interested in the genre of ghost stories. Buy the book from anywhere. It doesn’t really matter to me. I’m promoting it because it is an interesting volume.
