Wena at Bedtime

Singaporean author Wena Poon's first novel Alex y Robert is published on 24th August in the UK.  The Salt Publishing blog captures the behind the scenes excitement.

And this is especially great - the BBC is featuring it as a Book at Bedtime.:

The book has been abridged and turned into a 5-part script and auditions are underway to find a reader (the programme’s Producer, Jeremy Osborne from Sweet Productions, says that this process isn’t the easiest from a technical point of view. Read the book and you’ll find out why!). The recording studio is booked for the week of the 16th August (Wena and I are hoping to pop along to see how it all works) and — diaries out now, please, pens poised — broadcast dates are set for the 6th – 17th September, Mondays – Fridays on BBC Radio 4.
It will also be available online on the BBC iPlayer, so wherever you are in the world, you’ll be able to tune in and be guaranteed sweet dreams.

All this activity is so exciting; as Wena says: ‘Imagine actors auditioning, producers producing, casting directors casting!’ Add to that, millions of people lying in bed listening and readers reading. Wonderful!
Share and Enjoy:

The premise of the book sounds very interesting :

In 1959, two famous Spanish matadors, who were best friends, died. Alex y Robert is the witty, modern fable of their grandchildren: Alejandra, a young American woman determined to become a matador, and Roberto, a reluctant star Spanish bullfighter whom she recruits to help her. Part travel adventure, part cultural critique, the novel portrays man’s complex relationship with animals and a new generation’s surprising take on an ancient and controversial spectacle.

I'm sure we all wish Wena - and Salt - good luck with the book.

Alfian's Thoughts on Singapore

Some of the challenges that we face are universal. It is difficult to make a living and a career out of writing and publishing in Singapore. For a country of 4.5 million people, I believe that there are fewer than 10% who are active readers. From that percentage, even fewer pick up and read works written locally. Readership is a challenge. We don’t have a reading culture. If you look at the bestseller lists, they are works, in a sense, already successfully and globally marketed, like Harry Potter. A lot of self-help books reach the bestseller list. That happens to be the reading diet of the Singapore population.

Bissme S interviews award-winning playwright Alfian Sa’at in The Sun about living and writing in Singapore, and his brushes with censorship. 

This I find interesting :

I am inspired whenever I come to Kuala Lumpur. I feel there are little pocket freedoms which I do not find in Singapore. There is greater freedom of expression in Malaysia.

(Alfian is currently doing a residence at CHAI House.)

*Thanks Bissme for sending me the link.

Wena Wins Willesden

Congrats to Singaporean author Wena Poon who has won Willesden Herald's Short Story Prize with a piece called The Architects. The results were announced at a special event last night Charles Dickens' house, 48 Doughty Street, London, and equal runners-up were Willie Davis and Henrietta Rose-Innes.

I like this quote by author/poet Richard Peabody from the back of the collection of finalists' stories (left) :  

In my next life I'm coming back as the brainy talented author of "The Architects." Talk about brazen, submitting a story about a contest to a writing contest. Does it work? Check. The focus might well be on writers—the same dynamics of love, jealousy, sex, and mentors, applies. New York City is captured in amber. Check. Foreign-born exiles get their due. Check. Authentic dialogue squeezes out sparks. Check. Jokes? Check. Do the juggled balls remain in the air? Check. Yes, I want to be this author, who like a sly child with an Erector Set creates miraculous buildings out of thin air."

Am quite impressed that the prize is a mug!  (I love mugs and always drink my tea from them.)

Singapore's Fiction Famine

One of the great conundrums of local writing - how come Singapore produces so many excellent poets but comparatively few writers of fiction? And why does that situation seem to be reversed in Malaysia? Of course it is something of an oversimplification, but on Eric Forbes' blog, poet Ng Yi-Sheng suggests some reasons :

... the easy answer is that poems take less time to write. Singapore’s a busy country. Most of us have day jobs; those of us still in school often have night tuition. It’s hard to carve out a chunk of time to write the Great Singapore Novel, or even a full-length play. It’s much easier to scribble out a poem on the bus in between stations, or while waiting for our systems to defrag.

Another answer is that communities of poets have developed. The seminal moment for this was the Singapore Literature Prize in 1995, which allowed unpublished poetry manuscripts. The official victor was Roger Jenkins’s From the Belly of the Carp, which has faded into literary obscurity, but the runners-up were a band of 20- and 30-somethings, eager and determined to develop Singapore literature anew.

The Class of ’95, as they call themselves, were Alvin Pang, Aaron Lee, Boey Kim Cheng, Yong Shu Hoong and Heng Siok Tian. They organised readings, lobbied bookshops to stock their works, travelled overseas for literary festivals and put together grand, ambitious anthologies (e.g. No Other City, a collection of urban poetry where names of poets were relegated to the index, so that laureates and neophytes rubbed shoulders to form a polyphonic national epic).

I was lucky enough to be present in those early years: an awkward, closeted schoolboy, chanting my free verse at Chijmes, the old National Library, Borders and the old MPH bookshop. What was really great was that these guys were approachable and inclusive, paying for our dinners at mid-priced Indonesian restaurants while they discussed politics and culture, bringing us along on overnight train rides as part of poetry delegations to Kuala Lumpur. Without their encouragement, I might never have dared to print my verse.

And today, it’s the same story. The Class of ’95 and the poets who followed them continue to be the crusaders of homegrown lit. There’s Cyril Wong and Toh Hsien Min, who run online literary journals Softblow and Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore respectively. There’s Chris Mooney-Singh, who hosts poetry slams and coaches students in performance poetry. There’s Enoch Ng, a Chinese-language poet, who cranks out award-winning volumes of verse in Mandarin and English from his one-man publishing house, Firstfruits.

Poetry in Singapore is alive and well, not just because of our preference for bite-sized creations, but because poets are working hard to make themselves heard. Thus, we’ve got communities, not only of writers, but also of readers, willing to support us as well as the newer poets who emerge year after year.

He makes the point though that the media in Singapore largely ignore the poets (but were very keen to pick up on short story writers Wena Poon and O Thiam Chin after the Singapore Literary Festival).

But, he says, he can't think of :

... a single other Singaporean fiction writer who’s emerged and published in the 2000s ... it's a fiction famine ...

He reckons though that there is hope for the future :

The literary agency Jacaranda Press is actively seeking out Singapore fiction for a global market. There’s a new grant from the National Arts Council called the Arts Creation Fund, supplying enough cash for people to actually to take a long-term break from their jobs and churn out a humongous tome. November has even been declared a NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, an exercise wherein participants are committed to churning out 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days. ... Not surprisingly, the Class of ’95 has also leapt to the rescue. Poet Alvin Pang has teamed up with The British Council in Singapore to set up a week-long writers’ retreat on the island of Pulau Ubin, with novelist coaches from the UK’s Arvon Foundation to goad us into writing fiction. I attended the retreat myself in October 2009, one of 12 participants gathering in pondoks with laptops and notepaper, five of whom were fellow poets. I’ve borne witness to the workshops, and I can assure that there’s some great prose bundled up in some of us, waiting for a moment to break free.

(This piece will be appearing in the next edition of MPH's Quill magazine.)

Encouraging Writing in English on Both Sides of the Causeway

English matters. As a medium of communication, we reach the world with it and the world reaches us. That’s a fact we can’t ignore. Hence, Malaysians writing in English is a bridge for us to connect with the global audience. ... And, since English is a widely spoken language in the country, it’s a medium for us to connect with each other as well. ... Malaysian literature in English is unique to us. We wrestle with demons uniquely our own and our works reflect that. But are we seeing enough Malaysians write in English?

asks Rizal Solomon in today's New Straits Times. He says that he was stung into feeling guilty by Wong Phui Nam's words at the Singapore Writers' Festival KL press launch : wasn't he himself guilty of not really paying attention to local writing talent? He took the opportunity to talk to writers from both sides of the causeway at the festival.

Veteran novelist K.S. Maniam says (and I personally really applaud this) :

I think they have to break down this wall between writing in the national language and writing in English, Tamil and Chinese. We have to say all writing is Malaysian.

Maniam mentions some of the factors which will really help and encourage local writers - much more translation, workshops, competitions and awards.

Singaporean Wena Poon tackles an attitude problem:

Many Singaporeans complain there is no point producing art because there is no audience in Singapore; people won’t buy tickets or books. They assume the readers’ lack of sophistication and everybody gets depressed. That’s a non-constructive view ... Even in America, the typical layman doesn’t give a damn about the arts, poetry, theatre or novels; so don’t expect a heartlander to shell out for a book. You play to a certain audience, in every society. If you, as an artist, care about ticket or book sales, then it’s your job to figure out what readers want ...

Writer/artist Sonny Liew (whom I am ashamed to say has slipped beneath my own radar despite being nominated for the prestigious Eisner Award, while the recent French translation of his graphic novel Malinky Robot won the 2009 Prix de la meilleure BD award), quite rightly points out that things are changing for the better for writers with the Internet :

... which allows easier networking and online publishing, means there’s less isolation and less dependence on traditional forms of distribution and publication

Amir Muhammad says :

I never believe in ‘scenes’, just in individual writers. And on that note, there are a few rather strong writers indeed. Among fiction writers, Brian Gomez and Shih-li Kow are world-class and inimitably local.

As Rizal says at the end of his column, really it is up to all of us to give out local authors a chance!

I must add that I find it greatly encouraging to see space given to this discussion in the NST and hope there will be much more to come. Now that's a great way to boost local writing!

Catherine Lim Tells It Like It Is

This is just to give you an idea of how volatile writers like myself are and how our minds go tuk-tuk-tuk like fireworks all the time.

Singaporean author Catherine Lim is interviewed by Seth Mydans in The International Herald Tribune today in a piece entitled With a Smile, a Writer who Vexes the Men who Run Singapore.

It isn't online (which is strange)* so I have scanned it (albeit a bit clumsily in two parts) and you can read it by clicking it up to size.



Lim is described as :

... a leading voice for liberalism.

and famously a thorn in the side of Singaporean politicians. (Her latest run-in with Lee Kuan Yew is reported here.) Mydan's piece points out that Singaporean newspapers shy away from publishing some of Lim's more pointed views, and so like all subversives worth their salt she blogs them.

One post well worth reading on her blog is Kenneth Paul Tan's study about Lim's ongoing duel with the government, Who's Afraid of Catherine Lim? Her talk on Humour, Wit and satire as Tools of the Political Critic is also well worth watching. (Check out the cartoon and the quotes on the Blinking Brink blog.)

I'm much amused to hear that Lim's latest job is professional lecturer on cruise ships (e.g.) where she dresses up in her cheongsam and tells stories about :

... men and women and ghosts.

She's a very gifted raconteur, and I really loved meeting her a couple of year's back at the Ubud Writer's Festival. She appears at the Singapore Writers Festival (24 Oct - 1 November, 2009). And really, we must persuade her up to KL soon.

* It is online a day later at The New York Times. Thanks Fionally who told me via Twitter.

O Oh!

You may remember the name O Thiam Chin from a long-time ago story about his struggle to sell his first self-published collection of stories Free Falling Man. Or you may have seen his stories in Silverfish New Writing 6, or Body2Body or on the QLRS website. Well now he has a new collection, Never Been Better, out with MPH, and it's blurbed by no other than Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Gift of Rain, Tan Twan Eng who calls it :

A collection of thought-provoking stories about the contemporary Asian family. O Thiam Chin is a promising writer.

The book is due to be launched in October, and O (isn't that a great family name for an author!) will be appearing at the Singapore Writers Festival.

Wena and Co for Southbank

It was very nice to hear this morning (via Twitter) that Singaporean author Wena Poon is going to be appearing with novelist Isa Kamari (left) and Edwin Thumboo at Level 5 Function Room at the Southbank centre in London on Monday 28 September 2009, 7.45pm. The event is called Writing Singapore and here is the blurb about it :

In a first for Southbank Centre, we welcome a group of Singaporean writers to read from their work and share insights about the literary culture of their nation. Isa Kamari is an experimental novelist and playwright whose most recent work is Tawassul (Nearness). Wena Poon writes from the diaspora experience of living in the US. Her fiction looks at Singaporean and American life in her latest novel Lions in Winter. Edwin Thumboo is a leading figure in Singaporean poetry, who edited some of the earliest anthologies of Singaporean and Malaysian literature in English.

Do hope some of you who are living in London will be able to make it. I wish I could be there!

Foxy Wena

Wena Poon has just launched a website for her new collection of stories, The Proper Care of Foxes, which is published by Ethos in Singapore. the book will be avaialble from September and will be launched at this year's Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.

Wena Poon’s first book, Lions In Winter, was longlisted for the Irish Frank O’Connor International Award (there was no shortlist) and shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. I do hope that she enjoys similar success with this one.

Literary Singapore

When I went down to Singapore last week for the talk at The Arts House with Wena Poon, one of the best things about the trip was meeting writers and book lovers.

Among them was one of my Facebook buddies, blogger Jason Lundberg, who writes here about the event (and echoes my own feelings about it) and also about Tash Aw's Singapore book launch.

Other lovely literary people I had a chance to meet - R Ramachandran of the Singapore Book Council; poet, playwright, novelist Robert Yeo; and poet Alvin Pang.

Afterwards a group of us went to an excellent restaurant called Charcoal for dinner, and there was much talk about cross-causeway exchanges ...

Salil's Article Made Accessible!

Last month I told you about Salil Tripathy's essay on the political imagination and literature of Malaysia and Singapore being published in Indian journal Biblio. The piece was behind subscription so I don't think many (if any) of you read it. You can now find a (in his words) shorter, tighter version of it at Global Asia. Please do go take a look because it would be great if we could stir up some discussion on it!

Art Chose Wena

Shirley also sent me scan of this article written by Wena Poon from the local edition of Marie Claire. Do read it because there are some lovely words of encouragment for local writers! (Click to full size.)

Sad I actually am indeed that she didn't win the Singapore Literary Prize, because I feel such a strong connection to Lions in Winter (as you will understand if you read this).

Malaysian Political Imagination and the Novel

While Malaysia is anything but a full-fledged democracy, its relative openness permits a spectrum of debate, which allows for a certain flowering of creativity. ...

... Samarasan, Aw, Tan, and Tei matter because, being from an ethnic minority, they provide a different perspective to Malaysia's divided polity, given that Malaysia's preferential policies benefit the majority, and not minority, communities. Furthermore, these writers provide a local voice looking at the country and its past. This is important, because until recently, fiction about Malaysia or Singapore looked at the region from an outsider's perspective, with the natives offering colourful backdrop ...

Salil Tripathy pens a very important piece on the political imagination and literature of Malaysia and Singapore for the current issue of the Indian literary journal Biblio. You will need to subscribe to the journal to access the full piece.

In the same issue there's also a very nice piece about the litbloggers of Asia by Jai Arjun (who blogs at Jabberwock). Jai very kindly writes about my blog, and also mentions other local bloggers doing a great job - namely Amir, Eric, Glenda. (This article can be read for free but you need to register first).

Wena's Irish Adventure

Despite being excited about the opportunity to read from my book at Cork, I had my reservations. I've always had a horror of "lit fests." I was, however, relieved to find that the Frank O'Connor Short Story festival wasn't about writers preaching about "Literature" into microphones, or groupies lining up to get their books signed. It was about taking small, intimate workshops and learning from some of the most talented and generous writers in English fiction today. It was about chattering with writers and editors and getting pissed in the Long Valley, an old literary pub with faded lamps, night after night. And, best of all, it was about endless readings—which were really, at their best, performances—and screaming and giving high fives to the writers whenever they delivered a gut-wrenching, one-two punch performance of a story that just slew everybody. Together we rediscovered the oral tradition of storytelling, and for five days we experienced what the old bards already knew: the simple happiness of huddling together and telling each other stories over a pint or two.

By the end of the first night, I was delighted to find that the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival wasn't highfalutin. If anybody had any corners, they were knocked off. If anybody had any doubts, they were dispelled. We had—after many rounds of Beamish and Guinness—distilled the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival to its very essence. It had become, as the American writer Jon Boilard calls it, the "Frank O." And whether we were world-famous, or not famous, or editors, or publishers, or literary agents, or writers, or poets, we had become a fellowship. It was as if Pat Cotter, the organiser, aimed to replicate in five days what a community of writers in Cork, Ireland, would have naturally formed in five decades. And he came very close to doing so. Good literary festivals inspire readers. Great literary festivals inspire writers. Thank you, City of Cork, and thank you, Pat. Old Frank O himself would have been proud..

Wena Poon's account of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival is published in Starmag today.

Wena also wrote a lovely email to Eric Forbes which I'm sure neither of them will mind if I quote from :

I hope your business people know that Lions was very successful at this festival, that editors asked for my next book, that the audience loved the story I read, and wanted to buy copies of this book that sold out, and what a great publicity this event has been for both Lions In Winter and MPH. I told everyone what a great publisher MPH has been in terms of taking the risk and promoting this work in Singapore and Malaysia.

To me Wena wrote:

I feel like I'm standing right at a live volcano of contemporary fiction watching the red hot lava flow past. The writers that I got to know are all amazing.

And then she asks the big question :

How, how can we create this in Malaysia?

(Top pic is from Wena's blog, bottom pic is of Wena flanked by fellow short story writers Carys Davis and Vanessa Gebbis)

Singapore Literary Award

The shortlists for the Singapore Literary prize have been announced by the National Book Development Council (and many thanks to Philip Tatham for forwarding it) :

English category :

1. Last Boy Ng Yi-Sheng
2. The Lies that Build a Marriage - Suchen Christine Lim
3. Lions in Winter: Stories - Wena Poon
4. Rainbows in Braille - Elmo Jayawardena
5. Five Right Angles - Aaron Lee Soon Yong

Malay category :

1. Bila Rama-Rama Patah Sayapnya - Mohamed Latiff Mohamed
2. Anugerah Bulan Buat Bonda - Muhammad Salihin Sulaiman
3. Langau Menyerang Masjid dan Cerita-cerita Lainnya - Suratman Markasan
4. Cetusan Kalbu Seorang Penyair Peter Augustine Goh
5. Perahu Melayu Di Lautan Khulzum Johar Buang
6. Sekeras Waja Selembut Sutera Manaf Hamzah

Tamil books :

1. Pin Seat Sankar Jayanthi
2. Aayul Thandanai J M Sali
3. Naan Kolai Seyum Penkal K Kanagalatha
4. Ouyir Ourugum Sabtham Palanisamy Subramanian

(There is also a Chinese category but I did not know how to deal with the Chinese characters so please email me if you would like to see the original PDF. Sadly I can't find anything online about the prize - the most recent info is two years out of date, the last time the biennial prize was awarded!)

The award is worth SGD 10,000 for the winner in each category and is open to Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents and is for published works of fiction (novels and short stories) and poetry published between January 2006 and December 2007.

A total of 70 titles were submitted for the four languages: 18 English titles, 18 Chinese titles, 13 Malay titles and 21 Tamil titles. The winners will be announced in an award ceremony in late November or early December 2008.

Wena in Cork

I'm excited for Wena Poon all over again.

Longlisted for the the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award, she had no chance of being shortlisted for the same ... because, of course, there wasn't a shortlist in the end.

But Wena has been invited to read her work at the Frank O’Connor Literary Festival in Cork, Ireland, on September 17-21, 2008. Also appearing will be Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li, Clare Wigfall and ZZ Packer. You just don't get bigger names in short fiction than these.

As Wena reminds us on her blog :

This is the first time a Singaporean author, and MPH, a Malaysian publisher, appeared on the FOC longlist. The longlist had a preponderance of authors from the West: 36 out of 39 authors. Only 3 authors were not from the West - they were from Singapore (Wena Poon), Nigeria and Taiwan.

What I hope for most now is a way for Wena's book to find it's way into the hands of a wider readership overseas ...

(Pic above is Wena being interviewed recently on Channel News Asia.)

Shamini's Success!

Here's another local author to give a big cheer to. Malaysian born, Singapore resident Shamini Flint has bagged a three book publishing deal with British publisher Little, Brown. (See article from Straits Times below and click up to full size.)

Here's the press release for the first of the books to be published under the Piatkus imprint :

A MALAYSIAN MURDER

By Shamini Flint

On death row for the murder of her ex-husband, Chelsea Liew fears never seeing her children again. She’s used to being in the headlines – beautiful Singaporean model, swept off her feet by Malaysian heir to a timber fortune; Chelsea Liew knocked about by millionaire husband; Chelsea and Alan in custody battle over children – but never before has she felt so tortuously exposed.

When Inspector Singh is sent from his home in Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to solve Alan Lee’s murder, he isn’t ready for the cultural and religious conflicts that transpire from such a high-profile case. But it is the conflicts within the Liew family that really test Singh’s judgment to its limit. His hunch says that Chelsea is innocent, but just how is he to prove this? And if Chelsea didn’t murder her ex-husband, then how is Inspector Singh, with the Malaysian police working against him, going to discover who did?

This is the first in an exciting and innovative new crime series, with each story set in a different Asian city. Shamini Flint has created an exceptionally endearing hero in Inspector Singh, who can only be described as the Asian Morse. Next stop Bali, then Singapore – this is a truly commercial series with enormous global appeal.

Shamini Flint began her career in law in Malaysia and worked at an international law firm in Singapore, travelling extensively around Asia. She has also taught law at the National University of Singapore. Shamini has written numerous children’s books including ‘Jungle Blues’ and ‘A T-Rex Ate my Homework’. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed ‘Sasha’ series of children’s travel books. She lives in Singapore with her husband and two children.

Imprint: Piatkus
Publication date: early summer 2009
US rights: diane.spivey@littlebrown.co.uk
Translation rights: andy.hine@littlebrown.co.uk

I got to know Shamini through her aunty Usha (who was one of the first friends I made in Malaysia, back in Raub in 1984!) and her mum, Lizzie.

Shamini actually came to me with the manuscript of the first crime novel, Partners in Crime, which she was intending to self-publish (and did) and I gave her some feedback on what was a generally a well-written novel. The best piece of advice I gave her was to bring into the foreground her wonderful detective, Inspector Singh, who in the first draft was languishing in the shadows somewhat, with egg on his tie.

I'm thrilled to bits that Singh (whom I really feel very fond of!) will now be taking a much wider audience by storm. (The dedication on the left means a lot to me.)

Shamini launched a second novel Partners in Crime, at the Singapore's Writer's festival in December. I suspect that this is the same book as A Malaysian Murder.

She had pitched the idea of a crime series set in this part of the world to publishers before, but was rejected. Having two self-published novels under her belt certainly helped her secure a five figure deal at the London Bookfair.

What Shamini has, I think, is the absolute determination to succeed even with odds stacked against her. (Make a note of that, guys. This is what it takes.)

As the article mentions, Shamini, a lawyer in a previous life who began writing and publsihing because it was a job she could fit in around being a full-time mum, is also the author of some excellent children's books - (I especially love Jungle Blues with its beautiful William Blake style tiger who accidentally jumps into a pot of indigo dye.)

We will be seeing her at Readings@Seksan soon ... most probably October. Meanwhile you can check out her website for Sunbear Publishing (for the children's books) and Heliconia Press (for the adult books).

Clarissa's Visit

I wish to write about a place of which I know everything yet nothing, where everything is familiar yet strange, a place where I feel I go too often, but never quite enough. This place is the same for everyone, only different.
It is called, of course, Home — not the Home where you now live, but the Home where you were born and in which all things must start.

This is the opening of Clarissa Tan's piece which won last year's Shiva Naipaul memorial prize, named for the Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist most noted for describing foreign places or cultures. The judges included William Boyd.

Clarissa's piece is set in (of all the exotic places in the world!) Puchong and is about a Christmas visit home.

(Writers - Doesn't this just show how the material right under your nose is often the most powerful?)

Amy Yeong writes on the AsiaOne website :

Her first person narrative is restrained, and even strangely detached at times. Yet, the underlying emotions are conveyed clearly through this very detachment. "The Visit" is, among other things, an excellent example of why the concept of "show, not tell" is such a powerful one for writers.

Clarissa, who now lives in Singapore will be making the long journey up today to read this p.m. at Seksan's.

Silverfish's Full Stop

The seventh book in the Silverfish New Writing series is also, of course, the last in the series of the short story anthologies which has done so much to revitalise local fiction over the years.

Like most of its predecessors, it's a pretty mixed bag with some first-rate new fiction, a number of other pieces which are interesting and certainly worthy of inclusion, and only one or two disappointments.

Overall, it's a less even collection than Silverfish New Writing 6 which also had a much stronger Malaysian flavour, but it still sets a standard that other locally produced anthologies of short fiction have fallen well short of.

Of the 19 stories in the collection, four are by Singaporeans, five are by Malaysians, and another four stories are by expats resident in Malaysia, the remaining pieces coming from writers from further afield. The original intention of opening the anthologies to writers from outside Malaysia and Singapore was to provide a little competition and to lift the standard. Perhaps it is a sign that the short story in Malaysia and Singapore has come of age that many of the strongest pieces are by local writers.

One of the best known writers in the book is Wena Poon. Her story Dog Hot Pot, which humourously dissects the attitudes and prejudices of Singaporeans. The story is included in her collection Lions in Winter, which has just been nominated for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize.

Fellow Singaporean Yvonne Tham gives us one of the quirkiest ghost stories I've come across. Jumi who works as a subtitler at a TV station, has recently lost her mother and is experiencing some strange goings on at home, including all the papayas from her tree mysteriously disappearing. She isn't too surprised when a ghost turns up ... except that instead of it being her mother's ghost (which would, she feels have been much scarier!) it is the ghost of Chinese writer Zhang Ailing, whom she greatly admires. The depiction of the growing friendship between the writer ghost and the ghost writer is both funny and touching.

Of the stories contributed by Malaysian writers, I particularly enjoyed Shih-Li Koh's most unlikely of love stories The First Time, and Saras Manickam's The Invisible, the story of an Indonesian maid after she is fired by her employer for letting her lover, another migrant worker, into the house. Both stories avoid all the usual cliches and give us the sense of real women in straightened circumstances making tough decisions.

Four of the stories are by expats who have made Malaysia their home. Robert Raymer is already well-known for his short stories, and in particular for his collection Lovers and Strangers. Only in Malaysia is told from the point of view of an expat whose marriage to a Malay woman has fallen apart. I found it fascinating for its cross-cultural insights, though a little slow in the telling. I much preferred his Transactions in Thai, a very nicely observed piece about the goings on in a Had Yai hotel where two Westerners on holiday from their real lives negotiate a deal with a hotel manager for a couple of women they want to take on holiday. Who, one wonders, is that backpacker scribbling in his journal at another table? It couldn't be Raymer himself playing fly on the wall, could it?

Peter Brown's The Last Deejay, set in a dystopian Malaysian twenty years in the future is nail-bittingly tense. Social order has completely broken down following the collapse of oil prices. Mobs rule the streets, and the forces of the United Islamic Army have landed (although the government denies this in the newspapers!). A deejay is murdered in his club in Jalan Bukit Bintang, and his mother and best friend must risk their own lives to bring back his body for burial.

The most risk-taking story in the book is Yusof Martin A. Bradley's The Good Lieutenant which follows over the course of a day, the life of a British policeman posted to Malaya during The Emergency. What I found exciting about the narration is the way that the lens of the camera sweeps from close up glimpses of the minutest details of the natural world around Reggie Gold (the birds, the insects, the drip of rain drops) to a wide angle view which encompasses the entire range of historical and social forces that brought Gold to Malaya. While little of note happens in the foreground of the piece until the tragic climax, the background is so full sketched that Gold is completely located within his temporal and physical context.

Editors Ashraf Jamal and Shanti Moorthy point out in the introduction that there is something a little unfinished and tentative about some of the stories, that they show :

... something that they (the writers) can't quite name and put a finger to ...

and I think that this is indeed true of some of the stories.

Viren Swami gives us The Beggar, a puzzling piece not amounting to a story, because story implies plot and this has only incident, a single incident, a chance encounter with a beggar in the final paragraph. Just who is the narrator and what is the meaning of the this encounter? The piece reads like the opening of a gothic horror novel, and even though the setting (Orchard Road, Singapore) is so familiar and no doubt coloured by our experiences of happy shopping trips, Swami creates an atmosphere of menace and a sense of dread which makes us see it in a new way entirely.

Layang-Layang by Yew Kwang Min is also a-not-quite-story - but an account of a journey back to the quaintly named Johor town with a friend who asks whether there is anything interesting to see. Perhaps to the outsider there isn't, but to the narrator, who grew up there every nook and cranny is replete with memories. This piece left me wanting to read more.

Of those stories by writers from further afield I especially enjoyed Shalini Akhil's surreal tale of a briefcase that took possession of its user, and Jane Downing's That Smile and the Tilt of Her Head in which the mother of a young man fighting in Iraq finds consolation in the memorabilia of an earlier war in the markets of Vietnam, including a haunting photograph of a young girl.

So yes, this was another Silverfish anthology that gave me much reading pleasure, and it really does grieve me to think that there won't be any more to come. Will MPH's collections fill the gap? Will another collection that another friend was talking to me about some months ago, finally materialise? Will Raman manage polish one or two of his protegees to publishable standard?

In all cases, I really hope so. But they really will have something to live up to.

Wena's Oscar Dress

Wena Poon is thrown some searching questions by Intan Maizura Ahmad Kamal in the New Sunday Times.

On where she gets her ideas :

Like many writers or film directors, I observe people. Something poignant would occur in my daily life – I would notice a stranger on the street and think, “There is a great story behind this person.” I love the dramatic possibilities of ordinary life. I spend a lot of time writing down interesting monologues that ordinary people deliver in my presence, unconscious of the fact that they are actors on a stage of their own design. For example, I think cab drivers, when they go on a rant, are absolutely hilarious.

On her literary hero :

E.M. Forster. He didn’t write many novels, but they were all elegant and sympathetic observations of the human condition. He’s also easy to read.

On her writing style :

I shoot straight from the hip. I try to communicate simply, effectively and elegantly. I don’t mix metaphors, I don’t try to strive for effect. I write exactly the way I think. As Keats said, “poetry should come as naturally as leaves to a tree.” If you push yourself too hard, you’re doing it wrong.

On Singapore :

It’s a question of the heart. I’m pretty sentimental about Singapore as I grew up there for the first 17 years. I want more people to know about Singapore, that it’s not just a tropical touristy place, that it’s not just about the chewing gum ban and caning, but that it is a unique, diverse, complex and amazing place. But we can’t do that until we believe in it ourselves first. Ironically, many Asians think Americans do not have moral values, but it was the Americans who taught me to be proud of my roots. They taught me patriotism, to treasure what I have instead of saying it’s not good enough.

Her ultimate dream she says is to have one of her novels made into a film that would win an Oscar, and she says:

I already have an Oscar gown picked out. Very important, you know! You don’t want to be caught not having anything to wear at the last minute!

Can't wait to meet her on Saturday.

Eric tells me that her collection of short stories is going into a reprint of 5,000 copies to cope with the demand from Singapore, and I think that is truly fantastic.