Tumasik Contemporary Writing from Singapore

by Pang, Alvin

• ISBN13: 9780984303625
• ISBN10: 0984303626
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-01
• Publisher: Autumn Hill Books

Summary

Featuring contributions from 39 contemporary writers who represent some of the finest creative talent in the four major literary languages in Singapore today (Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and English), this anthology features complex, diverse, and cosmopolitan literature that breaks monocultural expectations. Many of the internationally acclaimed works collected in this volume are available here in English for the first time, presented in fluent, sensitive, and culturally attuned versions. From a popular Chinese form of non-fiction to a magic realist short story to a long urban poem, all forms are on display in these examples of modern literary imagination from Singapore.

Author Biography

Alvin Pang is the coeditor of Love Gathers All, No Other City, and Over There, and is the author of City of Rain and Testing the Silence. He was named the 2005 Young Artist of the Year (Literature) by the National Arts Council Singapore.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 11
Preface	p. 17
A Diorama	p. 20
From 'The Tudung Interviews'	p. 21
13 May, 3 Citizens & a Rooster	p. 27
Ashes	p. 35
Sketches of Fall	p. 39
Inside and Outside My Umbrella	p. 40
Aspiration	p. 41
The Wall	p. 42
Incan Dream	p. 47
Dream Sequence	p. 47
Monstrance	p. 48
A Rediscovery of the Weight of the World	p. 49
A Treatise on Infinity by the Sea	p. 49
Afterwards	p. 51
X-files	p. 52
Diagnosis	p. 53
after arthur	p. 54
Uncle Somu	p. 55
The Dye	p. 60
Best Face	p. 64
I never dreamed of being a butterfly	p. 67
Embroidering Orchids	p. 68
Metaphor	p. 70
We're just Failing from the Sky	p. 70
Stage	p. 71
What You See are Only Paper Birds	p. 71
Identity	p. 73
'cows' from 'dharamsala'	p. 79
Promises	p. 80
Brackets	p. 82
from 'Gloria'	p. 83
Rebirth	p. 89
Human	p. 97
My malayness, your malayness	p. 98
Raffles	p. 99
My people, my birthday	p. 99
Remembering Du Fu	p. 101
Flood	p. 101
Portrait of My Father	p. 102
Sunday School	p. 102
December	p. 102
Fish Shop	p. 103
The Audience	p. 104
Akan Datang	p. 105
from The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles, Scene 4	p. 105
Other Things	p. 112
When the barbarians arrive	p. 113
Taste	p. 114
String Theory	p. 116
Candles	p. 117
from'Starfish'	p. 119
My Personal Coffee History	p. 125
The Chronicle of Baghdad II	p. 133
Dang Anum	p. 133
Secrets	p. 134
In Search of the Island	p. 136
from Heartland Daren Shiau	p. 139
Revisiting Bali, 2007	p. 144
Celebrating	p. 144
Once We Were Schoolboys	p. 145
Thinking	p. 145
from'Post Terrorist Phenomena'	p. 146
Missing Breath	p. 153
from City of Small Blessings	p. 154
Imperfect Family Recipes	p. 160
Arts House, Smith Street, Singapore	p. 169
At the Zoo	p. 170
The Road	p. 172
The River	p. 173
Jonah	p. 174
Conjunction	p. 175
The Birth of a Name	p. 178
Bridging the Gap of Memory	p. 179
The Colonial Phenomenon	p. 181
The Fear of Sunrise	p. 182
Independent Yet Entwined	p. 184
Hungry Ghost Month	p. 186
Hamlet in a Hotel Room in Hong Kong	p. 186
'Since you told me'	p. 187
Salt	p. 188
Swiss Mangoes	p. 188
Aubergines	p. 189
Pebble	p. 190
Waking Report	p. 190
The Same Path	p. 191
Accelerando	p. 191
God	p. 191
The Confession	p. 193
Afterlife	p. 194
Farewell My Child, Farewell Manila	p. 195
Until the End of Time	p. 197
Shadow Show	p. 199
Chinese Pictograph: Beyond Symbols	p. 200
My New Village	p. 201
In a Bar in the Hills on a Snowstorm Night	p. 204
Henceforth, this Would be an Island without Cockerel Crows	p. 206
On the Operating Table	p. 210
from The Eye of History	p. 215
The Circle Line	p. 225
Bitter Grapes	p. 226
What Physics Didn't Explain	p. 227
Question of Faith	p. 228
from 3 Fat Virgins	p. 229
Contributors	p. 235
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.