Thursday 19 March 2015

Lion City Lit: Three From Ethos

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore.  Lion City Lit explores literary life in our own backyard. This week, we highlight three new titles from local publisher, Ethos.

Moth Stories, a collection of short stories by Leonora Liow
A young girl’s ambitions prompt dark stirrings in her nature. A father reckons with a lifetime of dysfunctional family relations. A foreign worker is cut adrift on a raft of shattered dreams. In the title story, Moth, a condemned woman reclaims her broken dignity. In a collection filled with pity, humour and irony, Leonora Liow explores the private universes of individuals navigating the arcane waters of human existence and illuminates the extraordinary humanity that endures.
Leonora Liow is a Singapore-based writer. Moth Stories is her debut collection.
Moth Stories is published in paperback, priced at SGD 20, excluding tax.



Priest In Geylang: The Untold Story of the Geylang Catholic Centre, by Fr. Guillaume Artocarena
Cosmopolitan Singapore, an emblem of globalised capitalism, is generally considered orderly, clean and green, a shopping and business paradise, and a model of sound economic management. Tourists, foreign journalists and visiting businessmen cast an absent-minded glance at local society, noting that the food is excellent, everything works well, and armoured tanks are absent on street corners. But after 17 years living here, the author shows a different side of Singapore, by looking at her from the grassroots. He paints a picture of a warm and generous people, much less passive than they are often supposed, he describes the difficulties faced by civil society, he tracks rapid social evolution as the City-State is confronted with major challenges: a falling birth rate, cramped territory with an infrastructure which cannot be extended indefinitely, and massive immigration which is increasingly resented by the local population. Above all, Fr. Arotcarena places on record the work and significance of his beloved Geylang Catholic Centre.
Guillaume Arotçarena is a priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP). In 1972, he was sent on mission to Singapore where he stayed until 1989. Redeployed in journalism, he was until 2007 in charge of the MEP press agency Eglises d’Asie (Asian Churches), when he specialised in news and information on religions in Asia. He is now retired in the French Pyrénées.
Priest In Geylang is published in paperback, priced at SGD 20, excluding tax.

Tales From The ECP, by Russ Soh
Singaporeans are mad for acronyms, and everybody in the City-State knows ECP stands for East Coast Parkway. But this famous road runs parallel to the East Coast Park - another ECP, and the one this book celebrates. Tales From The ECP explores incidents set in or around the East Coast Park, the stories take us into the heart of Singaporean‐ness. As a meeting point, East Coast Park brings together people of different ages, races, classes and nationalities. As a launching pad for meandering conversations, the ECP allows characters to reflect deeply on their sense of self, their identity, and their relationships with others who share the same space.  
Russ Soh gave up a high-flying corporate career to write. He published his first collection of short stories, Not The Same Family, in 2013.  Tales From the ECP is his second collection of short stories.  
Tales From The ECP is published in paperback, at SGD 14, excluding tax.


Buying the Books

Click here to buy these books direct from Ethos.  They are also available in bookstores in Singapore, and from online retailers.