An Evening with Preeta Samarasan

On Friday night MPH held an event called an Evening with Preeta Samarasan at Bottles and Bottles in the Gardens. Yours truly did the introducing and a whole bunch of folks read their work : Kathleen Choo, Reza Rosli, Priya K, MK Ajay reading poetry; Lee Su Kim reading from A Nyonya in Texas; and Ezra Zaid, reading a special message to us from Khaled Al Khamissi and an extract from Al Khamissi's Taxi which Ezra recent published here.


But it was the lady herself we were celebrating and waiting to hear. She read from Chapter 5 this time about the return of Paathi the grandmother, who died under mysterious circumstances in the bathroom ... and reading those lines that make us gasp at their sheer audacity.

The wine (a fruity, smooth Chilean - good enough to marry) was excellent, so thank you Bottles and Bottles for that. And thanks to MPH - especially Eric Forbes and Janet Tay, for organising the event and providing the food.

Adam Lee took some terrific photos of the evening and I refer you to his page on Facebook. I couldn't resisit getting him to take this shot of Su Kim's dinky embroidered nyonya slippers. The lady gets my award for literary sartorial elegance.