Asian
Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the
City-State, lit-wise. Here journalist Tom Benner explains why it’s a wonderful
source of stories…
Showing posts with label Lion City lit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lion City lit. Show all posts
Thursday 21 January 2016
Thursday 10 December 2015
Lion City Lit: Swag
Asian
Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the
City-State, lit-wise. Here Jo Furniss introduces Swag, the new online literary magazine
she's launching. Its events calendar, which brings all relevant listings together in one convenient place, is already live, and is packed with ideas. From
January, the quarterly journal will feature author interviews and new writing.
So:
over to Jo…
Thursday 8 October 2015
Lion City Lit: New Books From Ethos
Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise. Local publisher Ethos Books has recently launched a slew of new books, and will be launching several more at the upcoming Singapore Writers Festival, SGWF, which will run Oct 30 - Nov 8. Click on the highlighted link to explore a selection of what Ethos is offering...
Thursday 17 September 2015
Lion City Lit: We Rose Up Slowly by Jon Gresham
Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise.
Here Jon Gresham talks about We Rose Up
Slowly, his debut collection of short stories, published by Math Paper Press,
a local publishing house dedicated to promoting poetry and literary fiction. It
is run by the same people who run BooksActually, an independent book shop which
is well-known in Singapore.
Thursday 23 July 2015
Lion City Lit: Exploring South Asian Identity, by Verena Tay
Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise.
Here, Verena Tay talks about the South Asia Literary Salon, organised by the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of
Singapore. It was chaired by Meira Chand and took place earlier this month.
Friday 5 June 2015
Lion City Lit: Edmund Wee, Epigram Books
Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. Lion City Lit explores what’s going on in the City-State,
lit-wise. This month, I meet Edmund Wee,
the founder, publisher, and CEO of Epigram Books, one of Singapore’s largest
general trade publishing houses.
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.
Monday 2 March 2015
Lion City Lit: Singapore Mutiny
Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. Lion City Lit explores literary life in our own
backyard. This week, we offer a quick notice for Singapore Mutiny, a stirring account of combat and survival, by Mary
Brown and Edwin A. Brown. This is a must-read for all history buffs, but especially for those with an interest in military history, or in the history of India, or in that of South East Asia.
The Singapore Sepoy Mutiny of
1915 was an alarming episode in Singapore’s colonial history that saw 850
Indian soldiers serving in the British army revolt and slaughter 47 Brits, both
soldiers and civilians. To mark the Mutiny's centenary Monsoon Books has brought out a
diary kept at the time by the Browns, a colonial couple who were in the thick
of the action. The diary, never previously
published, has forewords by Professor Brian P. Farrell, Department of History, National University of Singapore, Nigel Barley, the author and anthropologist, and Celia
Ferguson, the Browns’ granddaughter.
Here’s an extract from the diary’s
opening entry:
Chinese New Year 1915 will long
be remembered in the Straits Settlements…We left for home, had a tiffin, and
went to our rooms for a lie-off, having arranged to go for a good walk when the
heat of the day was over. We had our tea, and at 5 pm got into the trap. We
drove along Tanglin Road, into Stephens Road, and along Bukit Timah Road to the
junction of Cluny Road, and there we dismissed the syce. We thought it a curious
fact that no-one was playing tennis…and there was not a soul to be seen on the
garrison golf course…You can imagine our horror when we found that the 5th
Light Infantry had broken out in open mutiny and had been in Tanglin that
afternoon, and were even then supposed to be marching on Singapore!
Also by Edwin A. Brown,
Indiscreet Memories: 1901 Singapore through the eyes of a colonial Englishman.
Both books are published in paperback, priced in local currencies, and widely available in Asia. Ebooks are available from online retailers.
Wednesday 3 December 2014
Lion City Lit: Woolf Works
Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion
City Lit explores literary life in our own
backyard. This week Raelee Chapman visits Woolf Works, a coworking space dedicated to women, and named after
Virginia Woolf, who famously declared, in her extended essay A Room of One's Own, that women must have
a space of their own to produce art.
Where does a woman go to write if she
cannot write at home? There are myriad reasons why writing at home can be
complicated, and full of distractions. So I was curious when a writer friend of
mine told me about Woolf Works, and I went along to an open day - a chance for
women to bring their moleskin notebooks and laptops and explore the space.
Wednesday 19 November 2014
Lion City Lit: Audrey Chin
Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Lion
City Lit explores literary life in our own backyard. This week Singaporean author Audrey Chin is in
conversation with Raelee Chapman.
As both a child of
migrant Chinese and settled Peranakan parents, and also as a daughter-in-law of
the Vietnamese diaspora, Audrey sees herself as an in-between person, a traveller
through different cultures. She writes what she knows, telling stories about
the search for belonging, about South East Asia, about her mixed cultural
inheritance, and about the Westerners who colonised her region. Her most recent
novel, As the Heart Bones Break, spans
60 years, and follows an Orange County Viet-Cong spy's quest to find peace and
a home for his conflicted heart. It was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature
Prize for English language fiction
What was your inspiration for As The Heart Bones
Break? How much research was required for the novel and how long did it take to write?
I married into the Vietnamese diaspora over 30 years ago. In part, As The Heart Bones Break was written to address the fence of silence which my Vietnamese family and friends erected around their memories; I wanted to leave my children with a story of this history. But it was also written as a response to the dearth of Vietnam War fiction from the point of view of male Vietnamese participants, especially the majority who had loyalty to neither North nor South but merely wanted the war to be over.
I married into the Vietnamese diaspora over 30 years ago. In part, As The Heart Bones Break was written to address the fence of silence which my Vietnamese family and friends erected around their memories; I wanted to leave my children with a story of this history. But it was also written as a response to the dearth of Vietnam War fiction from the point of view of male Vietnamese participants, especially the majority who had loyalty to neither North nor South but merely wanted the war to be over.
Wednesday 12 November 2014
Lion City Lit: Q & A with R Ramachandran
Following on from the success of Singapore Writers Festival, we realised here at Asian Books Blog that we ought to give greater coverage to what's going on in our own backyard. The result is Lion City Lit, our new Singapore slot. Here, Rosie Milne talks to R Ramachandran, executive director, National Book Development Council of Singapore.
Singapore aims to position
itself as a centre for publishing of Asian content - it wants any writer with
content relating to Asia to think of it as the place to publish. It helps that the country has four official languages: English; Chinese;
Malay; Tamil. The vibrant local publishing scene is unusual in that it has houses specialising in each language. As part of its strategy to win pre-eminence in the region, the National Book
Development Council makes a number of awards through the Singapore Literature
Prize, which has categories in each language sector. The 2014 awards were announced last week. I asked Mr. Ramachandran about the tiny City-State’s big ambitions.
How does the Singapore Literature Prize contribute to raising Singapore's profile as a centre of publishing?
Books can be eligible even if they are not published in Singapore, and the
award system is geared to grow both to include books published throughout Asia,
and also to include a larger number of categories and languages than at
present.
Other than administering the
Singapore Literature Prize, what else is the National Book Development Council
doing to promote publishing in Singapore?
In order
to serve as an effective centre of Asian content, we need to develop our
translation resources so that Asian content in other languages can be
translated into English and published in Singapore. Such translated works could
be more easily marketed in the region and beyond than could books in Asian
languages. We are planning to set up a translation centre to facilitate translation
of literary works into different languages. We have also upgraded our established
training body, the Academy of Literary Arts and Publishing, to develop the skills
of those in the local publishing industry.
Doesn’t the City-State’s small
size and small books market limit its ambitions?
No. We
publish for the world. For instance, each year we organise the Asian Festival
of Children’s Content. This brings together content creators and
producers, publishers, teachers, librarians and anyone interested in quality
Asian content for children. The Festival carries the slogan: Asian Content for the World’s Children. But it’s not just children’s publishing, we
want all our local publishers to publish beyond the region to the world
market, as do publishing houses in the US and the UK.
Have you learned from other small countries, which have had a big literary impact? I'm thinking of Ireland.
We have
not only studied Ireland, but also Israel and New Zealand, countries whose
writers and creative people have made an impact on the rest of the world. The
great advantage these countries have over us is a longer tradition of
literature and a culture of publishing. Singapore is a migrant state, and a
relatively new one, and even though our fathers and forefathers came from
nations with rich cultural traditions – China, India, the Malay world - they
migrated for materially better lives. Singapore’s early years were essentially
spent on day-to-day matters and economic concerns were predominant. Since
independence, after 50 years of post-colonial development, cultural interests
have come to the fore. The growth of libraries, museums, art galleries,
performing art centres, and a host of other services have emphasised the
importance of the arts.
Okay, but are Singapore’s publishing
ambitions driven by commerce, or culture?
Singapore
has always been a commercial city and it will continue to be. But great commercial
cities also emerge as centres of culture. Take London and New York in the
present day, and Alexandria and Venice in earlier times. All are great examples
of cities that are or were centres of the arts made possible by their
commercial wealth. While commerce and banking are the foundations of wealth in
Singapore, it has also realised the important part culture plays in people’s
lives and is committed to nurture Singapore as a global city of the arts.
The government has spent billions developing arts infrastructure, for example
setting up the National Arts Council,
the Media Development Authority, the School of the Arts, LaSalle College of the
Arts, and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, to train, nurture and support
creative talent.
An international publishing
industry needs an international rights marketplace. Are there any plans for
Singapore to develop a books fair and rights market?
Yes, the
Singapore Book Publishers Association is planning to set up such a fair. The
Book Council hopes to be involved in this effort. Meanwhile, the Book Council
has developed a marketplace for children’s contents called Media Mart as part
of the Asian Festival of Children’s Content. We want Media Mart to become
known as the foremost regional rights fair for children’s content.
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