What They Said About the SWF

Zafar Anjum on the Writer's Connect website argues that although the theme for this year's Singapore Writers' Festival was Undercovers, a better word would have been Chaos - not reflecting the organisation of the event - but the fact that so many of the authors (including Mohd Hanif - left) were writing about the world in turmoil :

Throughout the festival, I was looking for one word or one term that could summarize the essence, the zeitgeist of our times. I looked at the books that were there on display in the Arts House bookstore. I tried to listen to the questions that people posed to their favourite writers. What was the gist, what was the spirit, I tried to figure out. ... Looking at the titles on display, one of the themes that strongly emerges is that of political power, violence and tyranny.

The biggest name at the festival as far as most young Singaporeans and Malaysians are concerned was Neil Gaiman. Tickets for the event proved difficult to get hold of and many fans were disappointed. (Okay, maybe here there was some chaos.) Niki Bruce in The Straits times writes about what happened when The Rock Star Writer took to the stage.

I like this :

He (Gaiman) came up with the theory that 'stuffed author' was a secret Singaporean delicacy, where you take "one graying, older author. Feed him wonderful food until he's completely stuffed, and then slice him up into little pick packages".

There's an account of just what one fan went through to get get ticket and attend the events here.

More about the part of the festival I attended later.

And if I find more responses to the festival on any website (surely there must be more out there???) I will post them below them later.

Postscript :

Damyanti writes about some of the sessions and workshops she attended at the festival here.