Ken Liu

Alfian Sa'at

Fehmida Zakeer

Singapore. National Library Board

The Paper Menagerie

Malay Sketches

Faris Joraimi

Siew-Min Sai

Why did independent Singapore celebrate two hundred years of its founding as a British colony in 2019? Why did it do so with a history dating from 1299? And what are the possibilities of doing decolonial history in Singapore? Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History presents essays by historians, literary scholars and artists which grapple with these questions. The volume also reproduces some of the source material used in the play Merdeka (Wild Rice, 2019). Taken together, the book shows how the contradictions of independent nationhood haunt Singaporeans' collective and personal stories about Merdeka. It points to the need for a Merdeka history: an open and fearless culture of historical reckoning that not only untangles us from colonial narratives, but proposes emancipatory possibilities.

Towards a Merdeka History

Raffles Renounced

poems

The invisible manuscript

Cooling-off Day

A Manifesto for Arts Funding

Collected plays

Szkice malajskie

12 Short Stories

Corridor

Corridor is a collection of short stories all set in present-day Singapore. With unsentimental clarity and heartbreaking honesty, Alfian Sa’at writes about HDB dwellers – students, housewives and factory workers, whose lives begin to unravel once they discover that happiness is a fragile thing in a country obsessed with progress and success. The characters in each story find themselves in situations that offer them a ticket to hope and change: A video camera transforms the way a resentful daughter sees her widowed mother. A married couple receives free holiday tickets just when their luck seems to have run out. A girl encounters a transvestite on an MRT train ride who tells her that she looks like a famous singer. And a man enters a discotheque after a bitter divorce and re-learns the terror of falling in love all over again. Rich in authentic detail, with a sensitive ear for the vernacular, Corridor paints an elegiac, revealing portrait of contemporary Singaporeans who exist along the city’s corridors – haunted by lost loves, irrevocable childhoods and a deep longing to be free. Corridor won the Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1998. “Alfian’s stories are significant as they articulate with a critical eye the concerns of minorities, groups that do not or cannot fit the societal norms.” – Paul Tan, The Straits Times “His poet’s eye for freeze framing moments and his command of the language are still very much in evidence in the elegant turns of phrase and the flashes of poetic insight.” – Ong Sor Fern, The Straits Times "The magic of Alfian’s writing is no sleight of hand. It’s no illusion. It’s real.” – Haresh Sharma, playwright of Off Centre

Corridor: 12 Short Stories

Malay Sketches is a collection of stories that borrows its name from a book of anecdotes by colonial governor Frank Swettenham, describing Malay life on the Peninsula. In Alfian Sa’at’s hands, these sketches are reimagined as flash fictions that record the lives of members of the Malay community in Singapore. With precise and incisive prose, Malay Sketches offers the reader profound insights into the realities of life as an ethnic minority. Longlisted for the 2013 Frank O'connor International Short Story Award

Tew Bunnag

Ann Lee

Jean Tay

Floy Quintos

Nguyễn Đăng Chương

Joned Suryatmoko

Chhon Sina

The first ever comprehensive collection of plays in English from Southeast Asia. Features work by eight playwrights from seven countries in Southeast Asia, a region which is experiencing profound change: Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia. Southeast Asian Plays explores the rich variety of dramatic work that is only beginning to be translated into English. Theatre scripts are merely blueprints for productions, especially in this region. As elsewhere, second productions and revivals are rare, so publication is key to allowing play texts to find a wider international readership. Topics include the global financial crisis, sex workers, traditional v modern values, the role of faith in society, corruption in high places and journalistic ethics. The plays have been selected for performance. Plays: The Plunge by Jean Tay (Singapore) about the efects of a financial crisis An Evening At the Opera by Floy Quintos (Philippines) about a dictator and his wife Night of the Minotaur by Tew Bunnag (Thailand) about a man misused as a monster Tarap Man by Ann Lee (Malaysia) about a man wrongly imprisoned under the justice system Dark Race by Dang Chuong (Vietnam) about corruption in high places Frangipani by Chhon Sina (Cambodia) about the sex trade in Cambodia Piknic by Joned Suryatmoko (Indonesia) about the need to get rich quick in Bali Nadirah by Alfian Saat (Singapore) about the conflict between faith and morality "The editors have done an excellent job of opening up our chances of reading and learning about plays from all over Southeast Asia. ...editorial choices are significant for opening up spaces to voices which are otherwise heard less often. All in all the plays are interesting for the ways in which they grapple with key concerns in their respective societies." --The Asiatic

Southeast Asian Plays

Jonathan Ferrar

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