Literature

Mekong Review

Mekong Review, The Accidental Southeast Asian Literary Journal (via Eksentrika)

Good Southeast Asian literature and its related commentary can be hard to find for some of the people living in this region’s – however, it is possible. One such gem is the Mekong Review, a quarterly literary journal that aims to bring the region’s literary and intellectual life to a broader audience. Publishing fiction, essays, reviews […]

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AE_1
Courtesy of Sarah and Schooling

“Out of Print”: classic Singaporean texts get a contemporary makeover

By Corrie Tan (1,300 words, eight-minute read) We’ve all met the gaze of this pair of narrow, red-pupilled eyes – whether with a torchlight under the bedcovers, or in school, snuck into class beneath a desk. The predatory stare on the cover of Russell Lee’s True Singapore Ghost Stories still follows us from the shelves

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TEXTURES, A Weekend with Words

ArtsEquator’s Picks: TEXTURES, A Weekend with Words

By Akanksha Raja Presented by The Arts House and co-commissioned by #BuySingLit, Textures – A Weekend With Words is an inaugural literary festival taking place from 9 – 11 March, chockablock with performances, workshops, book-themed exhibitions, and over 30 panel discussions, all in honour of homegrown literature, and the energetic, growing community that has contributed and

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Sokunthary Svay

A Child of Cambodian Refugees Finds her Past through Poetry (via Electric Literature)

Cambodian-American poet Sokunthary Svay is tired of hearing about the Khmer Rouge. After concluding a yearlong review of Cambodian literature available in English, Svay found that nearly every accessible text about the country of her birth concerned either Angkor Wat, the ancient Angkorian Kingdom, the Khmer Rouge, or memoirs written by Cambodians who survived the

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22 – 28 January 2018: Singapore

Live at Reading Room: UnFree & Unspoken by Ethos Books, The Reading Room, 26 Jan, 8pm At The Reading Room (Downtown Gallery, #02-09/10), Ethos Books presents a poetry reading by local poets Joshua Ip, Theophilus Kwek and Marylyn Tan at Yellow Bash. In UnFree (8.00 – 9.00 pm), Joshua Ip and Theophi Kwek will introduce

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22 – 28 January 2018: Indonesia

Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Riau, Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta from 22 – 28 January 2018   RIAU Festival Musik Rimbang Baling, 22-28 January 2018, Koto Lamo, Kampar Kiri Hulu, Kampar, Riau. Immerse yourself in nature and come to this unique music festival while supporting nature conservation efforts! Presented with a theme “Menyemai

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Cambodian spirits

Ghost Stories (via Mekong Review)

In her article, “The Persistent Presence of Cambodian Spirits: Contemporary Knowledge production in Cambodia”*, Courtney Work argues that the presence of spirits in Cambodian culture has been made a subjacent subject in the dialogue of empire, but that the human culture of this complex nation cannot be properly explained without reference to the “other-than-human world”.

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15 – 21 January 2018: Indonesia

Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali from 15 – 21 January 2018   JAKARTA   Sastra, Hoaks & Humaniora, 17 January 2018, 4 – 7 PM, Dewan Kesenian Jakarta Come join the Jakarta Arts Council’s literature committee in their 10th public lecture titled Sastra, Hoaks & Humaniora. This 10th edition

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Book Review: “Retrospective: A Historiographical Aesthetic in Contemporary Singapore and Malaysia” by June Yap

How does contemporary art in Singapore and Malaysia reflect an alternative to the dominant narrative of history? June Yap’s book produces a concept of ‘Malayan’ history from the 1950s till 2010s through a selection of contemporary art from the region. In re-defining history through these works, Yap is reformulating the vocation of an art historian,

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Amanda Lee Koe

The City and the Writer: In Singapore with Amanda Lee Koe (via Words Without Borders)

Can you describe the mood of Singapore as you feel/see it? Singapore is how your favorite prawn noodle hawker auntie still remembers you take your meal with extra chili even after you’ve been out of town for six months; Singapore is the scrawny kid in the playground whose name no one can remember—until with showy

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8 – 14 January 2018: Singapore

Thought Lines – An exhibition by Berny Tan, at Supernormal, 333 Kreta Ayer Road, 11 – 28 Jan In her first solo exhibition, Berny Tan presents a new series of twenty abstract embroideries, reflecting on the medium’s obsessive nature through the repetitive motion of stitching. Each study is created by adhering to sets of written

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Inquirer.net

32 Defining Moments in Philippine Arts and Culture since 1985

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, founded on Dec. 9, 1985, as part of the “mosquito press,” helped dismantle the Marcos dictatorship in February 1986. With the new dispensation followed a liberalization of attitudes, newfound freedom of expression, the democratization of the arts, and a check on art patronage, as practiced by the previous administration. This led

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Sonny Liew

Graphic novelist Sonny Liew made history as the first Singaporean to win at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the “Oscars for comics”, held in July 2017 at Comic-Con International, San Diego, USA. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, which retells the life of a comic artist growing up in pre-independence Singapore, won not just one

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Same same but different: ASEAN 50 at the Singapore Writers Festival 2017

By Akanksha Raja (840 words, 8-minute read) “Language is born from imagination, and imagination is what makes language real. Without language, we have no memory: therefore, literacy (the mastery of language) is important. Our sense of language is the most intimate access to what is real, and our literature is our people’s memory; through language,

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Photography in Southeast Asia: A Survey

Book Review: “Photography in Southeast Asia: A Survey” by Zhuang Wubin

Photography arrived in Southeast Asia soon after its discovery in Europe in 1839, provoking contrasting reactions and developing in different ways according to the environment where it was introduced, yet having indeed an important impact in the modernisation of the region. Photography in South East Asia: a Survey offers us the opportunity to venture on

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Elaine Chiew interviews Singapore-based Filipino writer Victor Fernando Ocampo [Philippines, Singapore]

“For every writer, once in a rare while, a book comes along and really shakes you up, where (instead of that height/ceiling metaphor) I’d like to say instead, the floor drops on which you thought the legs of fiction stood. Victor Fernando Ocampo’s The Infinite Library and Other Stories did that for me. The ideas that power

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