“If satire is so toothless, then why are cartoonists so often badly bitten?” Ann Lee reviews RED LINES: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship by Cherian George and Sonny Liew. The distribution of this book, which examines the boundaries of free speech, has been banned by the Singapore government under its “Undesirable Publications Act”. …
RED LINES: 60 Global Cartoonists Talk Fear And Favour Read More »
We asked 11 writers and translators of poetry, fiction and non-fiction to participate in an exquisite corpse-like Q&A session, with each person answering a question and then asking one. These writers, who hail from countries in the Asia Pacific such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan, are part of the 2021 cohort of …
WrICE 2021: Writers Ask Writers, Asia Pacific edition Read More »
By Kathy Rowland (760 words, 4-minute read) This review may contain spoilers. Tiffany Tsao’s The Majesties begins with a horrific mass murder. Three hundred guests at the 80th birthday of Irwan Sulinado are poisoned, deadly fungi slipped into the shark’s fin soup by Estella, Irwan’s granddaughter. The guests are all part of Indonesia’s elite Chinese …
Reading in isolation: Tiffany Tsao’s The Majesties Read More »
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 …
“Out of Print”: classic Singaporean texts get a contemporary makeover Read More »
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 …
The City and the Writer: In Singapore with Amanda Lee Koe (via Words Without Borders) Read More »
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, …
Same same but different: ASEAN 50 at the Singapore Writers Festival 2017 Read More »
