Underlying the whole of Maniam's opus is his concern with a fundamental human need, that is, the need of an individual to have a spiritual centre. This is especially important for Malaysians who live in a state which rose from its origins in British colonial capitalist exploitation. This concern may be traced in the writing, most clearly in his fiction from Haunting the Tiger to Between Lives. It progresses from the rejection of a sterile urban lifestyle after one has broken free from abject poverty to a search for belonging and bonding with the land, and ultimately and more ambitiously, to spiritual unity with the land and all its people.