South of the Border, West of the Lit World

How strange it is that Malaysia and Singapore are neighbours, share so much in common culturally and yet we often don't know what is going on down there. Thanks, Dina for passing on information about the Singapore Writers Festival 2005 which runs from 26th August-4th September 2005. Here's the blurb about it from the website:

The Singapore Writers Festival celebrates the power of the written word! Aimed at inspiring great writing and nurturing a greater understanding and appreciation of the literary arts, the Festival is set to carve out a bold new trail on the literary stage with its exciting programme line-up. In the spirit of great literature, the Festival offers over 80 events by 63 writers. The events range from talks, readings, panel discussions, workshops, master classes, performances, film screenings to book launches and author signings. Broadening its scope this year to include popular genres such as Crime, Science Fiction and Fantasy as well as Graphic Novels, the Festival has something for everyone to enjoy. Singapore Writers Festival 2005 has attracted a galaxy of writing stars. Some of our stellar names from the literary world include Manju Kapur from India, Peter Goldsworthy and Doris Pilkington from Australia, Nuri Vittachi from Hong Kong, Goenawan Mohamed from Indonesia, Yu Hua from China. Our award-winning authors from the genre of Science Fiction and Fantasy include Bruce Sterling, Robert J. Sawyer, Norman Spinrad, Cory Doctorow, Juliet Marillier, Jennifer Fallon. The Festival also presents rising stars from the Asia-Pacific literary scene such as Ouyang Yu and Kathryn Fox from Australia, Wei Hui from China, Ayu Utami from Indonesia, Tarun Tejpal from India, Rattawut Lapcharoensap from Thailand, Cyril Wong, Tan Hwee Hwee and Gerrie Lim from Singapore and Amir Muhamad from Malaysia. Interesting line up. A couple of names jump out at me. Wei Hui is the infamous author of Shanghai Baby, and Thai/American writer Rattawut Lapcharoensap's collection of short stories Sightseeing has won a great deal of critical acclaim.

And it's nice to see Ayu Utami in the line up. She was one of the most interesting speakers at our own Litfest last year. I also like the way that the festival doesn't only cater just for the lovers of literary fiction: there are science fiction and fantasy writers, as well as sessions about writing cookbooks, graphic novels and blogging. The programme is not up yet but I will be checking back frequently. And yes, I think I'm going to be going down to catch as much of it as I can.