In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 5 March 1951
- Birthplace
- Kota Bharu, Perak
- Country
- Malaysia
- Nationality
- Malaysian
- Known for
- The Kampung Boy and warm, sharply observed cartoons of Malaysian life
- Full name
- Mohamad Nor bin Mohammad Khalid
- Pen name
- Lat, derived from the childhood nickname bulat
- Best-known book
- The Kampung Boy · 1979
- National honour
- Seniman Negara · 2024
Why this life matters
Lat turned cartoons into an unusually inclusive record of social change, preserving community detail while questioning the costs of urbanisation, politics and development.
Timeline
Key moments
Born in Perak
Born on 5 March and raised in a kampung environment that later shaped his visual memoir.
Published his first cartoon
Saw his work in print at thirteen and continued developing comics through adolescence.
Became a full-time newspaper cartoonist
Moved from reporting into a dedicated role at the New Straits Times.
Published The Kampung Boy
Turned childhood, family and village life into an autobiographical graphic narrative.
Published Town Boy
Extended the story into schooling, friendship, music and the movement from village to town.
Received the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize
Won international recognition for cartoons that examined everyday Asian life and social change.
Received the Merdeka Award
Was honoured for his contribution to visual storytelling and Malaysian cultural identity.
Named Seniman Negara
Received Malaysia’s National Artist Award for an exceptional contribution to the arts.
Drawing from kampung life
Lat was born Mohamad Nor Khalid in Kota Bharu, Perak, in 1951. He drew from childhood and published his first cartoon at thirteen, long before cartooning appeared to offer a secure professional path.
His pen name developed from bulat, a childhood nickname meaning round. The informal name matched an artistic voice that could be accessible and affectionate even when the observation underneath it was sharp.
Malaysia’s first full-time newspaper cartoonist
After working as a reporter, Lat became the New Straits Times’ first full-time cartoonist in 1974. The newspaper gave him a recurring public space in which politics, family, development and multicultural urban life could appear beside one another.
His drawings avoided reducing Malaysian society to official slogans. Crowded scenes, body language, clothing and speech patterns allowed readers from different backgrounds to recognise themselves and one another.
The Kampung Boy and Town Boy
The Kampung Boy, published in 1979, transformed Lat’s Perak childhood into a graphic memoir. Its images recorded houses, rivers, ceremonies and family relationships while letting humour carry cultural detail naturally.
Town Boy followed in 1981, shifting attention to school, friendship, music and urban change. Together the books reached international readers and showed that a specifically Malaysian childhood could travel without being flattened into a generic story.
Cartoons as cultural memory
The Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize recognised Lat in 2002 for a body of work that combined warm community observation with criticism of environmental damage, urbanisation and political self-interest. The Merdeka Award followed in 2014.
In 2024 Malaysia named him Seniman Negara. The honour confirmed what readers had understood for decades: his cartoons are not only jokes or illustrations, but a visual archive of how Malaysians experienced social change.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Lat
- Who is Lat?
- Lat is a cartoonist and social commentator. Lat turned cartoons into an unusually inclusive record of social change, preserving community detail while questioning the costs of urbanisation, politics and development.
- What is Lat best known for?
- Lat is best known for the Kampung Boy and warm, sharply observed cartoons of Malaysian life.
- When and where was Lat born?
- Lat was born on 5 March 1951 in Kota Bharu, Perak.
Sources and further reading
How this biography was checked
Core dates and offices are checked against the sources below. This profile was last reviewed on 31 August 2026.
