Moving House

by Kwek, Theophilus

• ISBN13: 9781784109639
• ISBN10: 1784109630
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2020-08-27
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

Theophilus Kwek's first UK collection is concerned with the individual and the collective stories that become history. The poems set out from formative moments in the poet's memory, to pivotal moments in the colonial past of Southeast Asia, and finally the political upheavals of the present. Hospitality, precarity, migration – these are some of the themes that recur as the poet makes his own journey from Singapore to Europe and back again. Moving House moves on a big time and space map, from Icelandic tales to the Malayan Emergency, and more contemporary dramas. From the perspective of a Chinese Singaporean shaped by the collective traditions and histories described in this book, writing in Britain, the poems model a sense of openness on the space of the page.

Author Biography

Theophilus Kwek is a writer, editor and translator based in Singapore. Two of his previous collections of poetry were shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize, while his pamphlet, The First Five Storms, won the inaugural New Poets’ Prize in 2016. Other awards include the Jane Martin Poetry Prize, the Berfrois Poetry Prize, and the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation. A former President of the Oxford University Poetry Society, he now serves as co-editor of Oxford Poetry and The Kindling, and has also edited several volumes of Singaporean writing. His poems, essays and translations have been published in The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, The Irish Examiner, and the Mekong Review.