Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Robert Knox Dentan's OVERWHELMING TERROR: LOVE, FEAR, PEACE, AND VIOLENCE AMONG SEMAI OF MALAYSIA

2026-06-06T14:01:51.982-04:00

"Ethnographies are mountains and endure," writes Dentan, but "theories are mayflies and don't." This work of ethnography is certain to endure like the mountain it is, and its theory about Semai peaceability is likely to be developed, strengthened, and affirmed by future ethnographers. To state its theory simplistically, Dentan argues that Semai peaceability originated as a functioning adaptation to Malay and British invasion, colonization, and child slavery. The Semai response to overwhelming violence, rape, and kidnapping is to flee, and when they cannot flee from the encroaching hegemonic state, to "surrender," in the author's specific sense of acting with the understanding that success is not within their control. The alternative is death and extinction. Semai elaborated this response into a religion of demon lovers (identification with one's oppressors), protective rituals, an egalitarian ethos, and a respectful way of raising kids, all described in different chapters of this remarkable study. This book has opened my eyes to the history and culture of Malaysian indigenes, and I'm eager to share it with another interested reader.

Yu-Mei Balasingamchow's NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED

2026-05-30T10:15:44.281-04:00

Yu-Mei is a good friend, and she gave me a copy of this, her debut novel. I read it over two afternoons and enjoyed it very much. It is tightly plotted, inhabited by memorable characters, and written in a lively style. A Singaporean on the run from the law encounters other overseas Singaporeans who are pursuing lives considered illicit in the country. It is a very clever conceit, executed with verve and pathos. It calls into question the untoward criminalization of Singaporean lives and loves.

Kiran Desai's THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY

2026-04-26T04:35:00.000-04:00

It is a novel about family as much as it is about romantic love, a novel about art-making as much as it is about immigration, a novel about dispossession as much as it is about privilege, a novel about ghosts as much as it is about the living. As Sonia the fiction writer asks and answers herself, "What united these wayward stories? The ocean. When she swam, she felt swimming beneath her in the depths a chimera. She couldn't see its form, but it was still an intimacy." Desai makes me intimate with an ocean of feelings.

Rebecca F. Kuang's YELLOWFACE

2026-03-29T11:11:00.004-04:00

I read the novel quickly in two sittings, even though it is not terribly well written. The plot is only serviceable, the characters are cardboard thin, and the writing is merely functional. I kept reading to the end, even though the ending was disappointing, because, as I discovered on reflection, that the novel appealed to some of my own worst instincts. I like reading about success, especially literary success, and how it is not truly merited; it sates my envy of others. I also like having my biases confirmed—biases against the publishing industry, against white people, against wealthy and good-looking people; I like to be right. This is not to say that my biases are unfounded; they are an outgrowth of my interactions with a racist, classist and superficial society. However, the angel of my reading self likes to think that great literature challenges our preconceptions and enlarges our understanding, but that was not what happened with my encounter with YELLOWFACE.

'Abd al-karim Ghallab's WE HAVE BURIED THE PAST

2026-01-01T14:02:00.005-05:00

An acute account of Morocco's transition to modernity and independence as depicted through a well-to-do family living in the ancient capital of Fez. The earlier chapters, which establish the seemingly static world of the past, were too leisurely paced for me, although they offer pleasurable descriptions of the old medina and its physical and social environments. The story quickens with the entry of the second son Abd al-Rahman to a "secular academy," where he learns to question authority and, ultimately, to fight for national independence. The daughter Aisha is mainly used as an illustration of the intellectual and social restrictions confronting upper-class Moroccan women; her story does not become integral to the main political plot. The third and youngest son merely hovers at the periphery of the novel. Most interesting is the dark-skinned son from the patriarch's concubine and enslaved servant, whose understanding of his status leads him to become a judge, a cog in the legal apparatus of the colonial oppressors. I'd have liked to read a novel about Morocco written from his ambivalent and anguished perspective.

Jeff Koehler's MATISSE IN MOROCCO: A JOURNEY OF LIGHT AND COLOR

2025-12-01T04:12:00.001-05:00

A really enjoyable read. I especially appreciate the weaving of the writings of Moroccans into the fascinating story of Matisse in the country, so we get to see not only Matisse's view of the country, but also the country's view, so to speak, of Matisse. The autonomy, dignity, respect, and equality that Matisse gave to his Moroccan human subjects, such as Zorah and the Riffian, is beautifully drawn out from his diaries, interviews, and, most importantly, paintings. I've always loved the mysterious painting "The Moroccans" in MoMA, and this biography makes beautifully clear the history of Matisse's engagement with Islamic art and North Africa that led up to its climactic finish in the painting. Morocco gave Matisse his resoundingly original answer to Cubism.

Stephen Greenblatt's WILL IN THE WORLD

2025-10-14T18:03:00.003-04:00

Compulsively readable. Some of the links are highly speculative, but the dots are connected in a pleasing pattern.

James Fenton's OUT OF DANGER and Pádraig Ó Tuama's POETRY UNBOUND

2025-08-20T11:42:00.001-04:00

There are lyrical poems in James Fenton's Out of Danger, and then there are poems that are very nearly song lyrics. Both give pleasure, though arguably pleasure of different kinds. The book has keen observation, social conscience, and musical intelligence in abundance. Are the rhymes worn-out in places, like tires losing their treads? Maybe, but the Philippines and other South Pacific islands provide new rhymes and treads.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a genial, acute, and personable guide to these 50 poems about a range of outward-looking subjects. It is a good snapshot of contemporary Anglo-American verse, with a few oldies thrown in. I did not think that all the poems were as good as Ó Tuama said, but it would be a big surprise if I did.

Elaine Castillo's HOW TO READ NOW

2025-07-18T00:22:00.002-04:00

Elaine Castillo's book of essays How to Read Now features a lit bomb on its cover. By its devastating critique of Nobel prize-winner Peter Handke's fascist sympathies and beloved Californian writer Joan Didion's settler-colonialist views, the book is necessarily blowing up Castillo's relations with certain influential parts of the literary establishment. If you have enough of coddling book reviews that read more like publishing blurbs than literary criticism, you will keenly appreciate Castillo's take-no-prisoners, and razor-sharp, approach to reading these and other white authors. The courage and honesty is undeniable.

More than attacks on individual authors, however, How to Read Now wants to destroy the harmful ways in which readers are expected by authors and publishers to center white experience: to treat it uncritically as "universal," "existential," and free of political taint, whereas the work of BIPOC writers is treated as mere ethnography, even if sympathetically. White readers are habituated to read BIPOC authors to understand "others" and to read white authors to understand "humanity." The BIPOC reader is often what Castillo calls "the unexpected reader," since white authors do not think that they need to take such a reader into account.

In other ways, How to Read Now is much more than an explosive device. It reads indigenous writers and artists from Aotearoa (New Zealand) with penetrating and moving insight. It reads Taiwanese and Hong Kong filmmakers with a deeply personal yet critical fervor. How to Read Now is also a touching memoir of the author's historical and familial inheritances as a post-colonial Filipina growing up in a small California town among an immigrant, ethnically diverse, and mostly working-class community. It is a powerful perspective from which to dismantle unjust power and to demand better reading.

The Progressive Hope

2025-06-26T09:36:00.001-04:00

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

THE PROGRESSIVE HOPE

On Tuesday, 33-year-old Zohran Kwame Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for the New York City mayoralty, and he is now the firm favorite to win the election in November. Against billionaire donors and the Democratic establishment who supported the corrupt and scandal-ridden ex-NY governor Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani ran an inspiring, grassroots campaign, firmly focused on making NYC affordable for all, which won the votes not only of the young college-educated, but also of working-class neighborhoods such as Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Sunset Park, and Brighton Beach – all areas that swung rightward in the 2024 presidential election, according to the Guardian.

The size of his victory in November will determine how far he can overcome the city's powerful vested interests and enact his election promises of free childcare, free buses, rent stabilization, and subsidized groceries. Once he is in the hot seat, he will have to win over his skeptics and opponents in order to bring about an economically vital and viable city. But for now, his victory brings hope not only to NYC but to progressive movements throughout the US and, dare I say, throughout the world. As I did back in March, I continue to support Mamdani's vision for a fairer world. The people united will never be defeated.

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In a published Opinion, our Editorial Board urged Singapore's Elections Department (ELD) to drop the residency requirement for overseas Singaporeans to vote. We're pleased that Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao picked up on our Opinion and reported on the issue, interviewing Eunice Lau and me from the Editorial Board as well as two legal scholars who agreed with us. Dr. Kevin Tan, an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore, was quoted as saying, "... if an overseas voter is willing to take the initiative to understand the election situation and apply to vote, this in itself shows a high level of concern and willingness to participate" (our translation). Dr. Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at Singapore Management University, concurred and was reported as saying that the exclusion of such overseas citizens "may weaken the inclusiveness and representativeness of the [election] system" (our translation).

The sole dissenting voice in the article came from Dr. Mustafa Izzuddin, senior analyst of international affairs at Solaris Strategies Singapore, a policy and business consultancy. Dr. Izzuddin opined, "If there is enough public opinion, [the residency requirement] can naturally be reviewed; but if it is just individual experience or complaints, it is not enough to promote institutional reform" (our translation). We think that it is wrong to subject citizenship rights to public opinion; there must, instead, be compelling reasons for retaining a residency requirement. However, there are none. The right to vote is a right of citizenship. Overseas Singaporeans decide consciously to keep their Singapore citizenship year after year. They do not have the luxury of dual citizenship. To deprive them of the right to vote because of a technical, and economically inequitable, requirement such as residency is unfair.

To the newspaper's inquiries, ELD responded, "We have taken note of the feedback from overseas Singaporeans and will take it into consideration during the next round of review of the electoral system" (our translation). We thank ELD for doing so and urge them to do the right thing by dropping the residency requirement for overseas voting.

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Tonight, at KGB Bar in the East Village, NYC, Jeremy Tiang launches his own novel State of Emergency and his translation of Hai Fan's Delicious Hunger. Both books bring to light the Communist insurgency against British colonial rule in Malaya (present-day Singapore and Malaysia. See you there!

Jee Leong Koh
June 26, 2025

Mohsin Hamid's THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

2025-06-22T18:11:00.002-04:00

The novel stakes everything on our interest in the narrator (his lover Erica is a thin, almost cardboard, character). Changez's story—from love to hate for America—is credible, but herein lies the problem. It does not offer any surprising or complex insight into the predicament or psychology of such a character. The same premise treated by Dostoevsky of "Notes from Underground" or even Murakami of "Norwegian Wood" would have resulted in an indelible portrait of mature dissent or youthful wistfulness.

To the Tune of “Shout” by Tears for Fears

2025-05-09T05:20:00.006-04:00

To the Tune of “Shout” by Tears for Fears

“In the days leading up to the May 3 elections—and Singapore offers one of the shortest windows for campaigning, only nine days—political rallies organized by opposition parties were packed, and enthusiasm for their candidates seemed real.”—Salil Tripathi, in “Why Singapore’s Ruling Party Won Yet Again,” Foreign Policy, May 5^th, 2025

What plane will you fly in and out of Singapore?
I’ll write a poem, not about, of Singapore.

Respect the voters’ choice, say the politicians.
When the choice weighs the crimes and clout of Singapore.

Pissed off, that’s how I feel, go and tell your masters.
God! I’m sick and tired, no doubt, of Singapore.

Outdoing one another on the screen, the pundits
wow but so does the sexist lout of Singapore.

I wanna scream and shout. And let it all out.
I wanna scream the scream, shout the shout, of Singapore.

The public square is out-of-bounds for PDA.
The eating contest is the Bout of Singapore.

What about workers’ rights? And the death penalty?
The free speech rules you cannot flout, of Singapore?

The season was rainy, muddy, and promising.
Nothing grows here but the bean sprout of Singapore.

We hadn’t even broached the genocide of Gaza.
O, citizen, consider the tout of Singapore.

The Bird Is Out of the Cage

2025-03-21T00:10:00.000-04:00

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

When two young women, while trying to talk to Singapore's Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam about the misuse of POFMA (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act) , were provoked to flip the bird to the cameras of his minders, the fast-and-furious criticisms of the sisters from politicians of the governing party, civil-society actors, and community leaders were telling about the rigid restrictions of political discourse in the country. As Jom puts it, "When we are quick to judge, to believe authority over activists, to pine for some imagined decorum in a dialogue biased by the disparity in power, we leave out much from our collective consciousness, our understanding of who we are."

The sisters have given their own version of the event, and I choose to believe them instead. If the full video were to be released, and not just the seven minutes that whistled to the salivating dogs, it would likely corroborate the women's statement. Singapore's political discourse needs shaking up, and these women, unintentionally and inadvertently, showed us how much needs to be shaken up. The bird is out of the cage, and there is no putting it back.

Sisters, You

“Filmed, encircled, and dismissed: Activists push back against Shanmugam’s
framing of MPS confrontation”—The Online Citizen, 14 March, 2025

Had an audience with the king
(Pardon me, I mean, the kinger),
Thinking he a public servant.
I salute your middle finger!

In good faith, you spoke about
Putting people through the wringer
Called POFMA. He scolded you and—
I salute your middle finger.

Kissers of the royal ass
Ringed you, everyone a ringer,
Filmed you although you said no.
I salute your middle finger.

Seven minutes out of an hour
Broadcast of your gunslinger.
You wrote back: The Parts He Left Out.
I salute your middle finger.

Faithful daughters of Hang Jebat!
Raja zalim raja disanggah*.
I, your humble singer, sing
And salute your middle fanggah!

*"The tyrant king must be disputed with": supposedly the last words of Malay hero Hang Jebat when he was killed by his best friend and royalist Hang Tuah.

Jee Leong Koh
March 20, 2025

To the Tune of “The Invisible Man” by Queen

2025-02-01T07:38:00.004-05:00

I have been thinking about what it means to write "political" poems, not just "news that stays news," but also about my own positionality in relation to Singapore politics. Sometimes New York and Singapore connect, unknown to anyone else. For example, I wrote the poem below thinking of both the criticism of Singapore writers of the National Library Board's use of generative AI and my own thoughts after the AI training at my Manhattan independent school.

To the Tune of “The Invisible Man” by Queen

“68 Singapore writers sign statement criticising National Library Board’s ‘uncritical endorsement’ of generative AI”—The Straits Times, January 08, 2025

We heard the miller bragging
To both the young and old,
I have a wonder for a daughter
Who spins straw into gold.

The King, desirous of talents,
As Lazybones of bed,
Ordered the girl to spin till morning
Or off with her head!

In a prison dark and musty,
The girl, limp as a leaf,
For a childhood torn up already
Cried and cried in grief.

No more to wander in the forest
That gave her not a look,
Nor travel to marvelous cities
In the course of a book.

Then a man, an imp but shorter,
Appeared out of the air.
He said, give me your necklace
And I’ll save you from despair.

The girl agreed to the bargain
And, prompted by her eyes,
The imp spun all her promptings
Into the golden prize.

How did straw turn into metal?
The girl had not a clue.
How does AI generate stories?
Don’t we wish we knew.

The gold gleamed brighter than
The sun over the hill.
Grabbing his loot, the man-imp
Vanished into the chill.

Throwing open the prison,
The king gaped at the gold.
Make me, he said, more riches,
Riches untold.

The girl sank to the flagstones
As more straw was brought in.
How could her heart not wish for
Her tiny savior again?

As if to answer her wishing,
The imp, in a blink
Of a cursor, arrived and asked for
Hmmm, let me think…

A ring! A loss of the fingers
After the loss of mind.
We know what comes next:
The loss of our kind.

Will we name the evil?
Will we kill the king?
Will we stop the fathers
And their blustering?

You can write the ending
Of this Fairy Tale.
You can decide if fancy
Will succeed or fail.

To the Tune of “This Is Home, Truly”

2024-12-27T02:29:00.001-05:00

To the Tune of “This Is Home, Truly”

I am a Good Class Bungalow,

You are a No Class Flat.
I live and work among the shmos,
a natural aristocrat.

I am a Good Class Bungalow
And not a No Class Flat.
I’m rich in show and hung with dough,
And yet no caveat.

I am a Good Class Bungalow.
Don’t say, I No Class Flat.
Just one slip of the tongue, you know
POFMA’ed you will get.

I am a Good Class Bungalow
Supporting No Class Flats.
That fairy tale from long ago
Better believe or—SPLAT!

I am your Good Class Bungalows,
I am your No Class Flats.
I am your River sung and flow
Through zilch and ziggurats.

Humphrey Carpenter's W. H. AUDEN: A BIOGRAPHY

2024-12-20T10:02:00.004-05:00

It's nice to have so many little details all in one place when I can only remember bits and pieces read from articles and other books about Auden. A useful reference. I think Carpenter is right to stress Auden's middle-class, Edwardian upbringing. His verse was innovative at all stages of his writing career, and he lived into the 1970s, but in his attitude to homosexuality, his longing for a settled, domestic life, and his return to the Christian fold, he showed the deep marks of home. Nevertheless Carpenter is alert to how Auden's travels and different habitations around the world influenced his writing. The biographer pays his subject the tribute of close attention.

Art, Activation, Activism

2024-10-26T04:32:00.002-04:00

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

"Art can activate the inert," I heard the Singaporean theater artist Ong Keng Sen say in his keynote lecture for last weekend's 6th biennial Singapore Literature Festival in NYC. "It can activate what is latent, what is potential."

This is one of many gems that I will carry with me after the festival. Another is the story that Ajoomma writer-director He Shuming told about joining a group tour from Singapore to Korea to research the aunties for his film. Hearing that he was single, the ajoommas wanted to match him with their daughters, but on learning that he was a filmmaker, they stopped.

The stories were both funny and sobering. Filmmaker Dev Benegal shared his memory of sitting besides a famous film editor for four whole years in order to learn how to direct. Author and curator Simon Wu explained his urgent and joyful discovery of forgotten Asian American artists in NYC. Theater-maker Rebecca Martínez spoke of stripping away the master-slave dynamic from The Comedy of Errors before bringing it to the community.

Justine F. Chen, who is composing the music for the opera-in-progress Sisters of the Storm, with librettist Marcus Yi, joined the festival for the first time. After the festival, she wrote to Lily and me (and I quote with her permission):

"I *absolutely* felt the warmth and excitement in every moment and each exchange of the festival. It has been my experience that each organization takes on and emanates the personality of the people in charge. This festival radiated love, hope, intelligence, curiosity, rigor, honesty, vulnerability, respect, and delight.

"When I arrived to the opening night party on Friday, I was not sure what to expect, but in the warmth of Mag and Clay’s hospitality, when you summoned Lily with her biography, and Lily shared the beauty of the beginning of the universe, I suddenly found myself in the most delightful space of creativity, care, and thought.

"Every detail of the festival was brimming with care and attention. Thank you both for what was a truly meaningful, deeply inspiring 48 hours. It was transformative: I was in joy - so alive, engaged, and evolving… full and growing in every minute of attendance."

If you believe that artists and writers can activate what is inert, latent, and potential, if you believe in Singapore Unbound's mission to envision and work for a creative and fulfilling life for everyone, please consider making a generous donation. We don't accept any direct funding from any government in order to remain autonomous. As we are all volunteers, your donation goes directly to artists and programs.

Since the festival was about building a community of love and joy around the arts, we could not forget the pain and suffering in Gaza, also our community. At the festival, we asked for donations to the Municipality of Gaza, a non-governmental and non-profit organization. The Municipality of Gaza works to restore basic services to the people. They have reoperated wells and maintained waterlines, in addition to reopening roads to allow the movement of emergency teams. They have also cleared and maintained sewage networks, collecting and transporting solid waste accumulated throughout the city. Would you consider making a donation to them, in solidarity and sympathy?

Jee Leong Koh
October 24, 2024

Interview about My Book SNOW AT 5 PM

2024-10-13T14:32:00.001-04:00

I had a lovely, wide-ranging conversation about my book SNOW AT 5 PM with poet Indran Amirthanayagam. Originally from Sri Lanka, which Indran still calls by its older name Ceylon, Indran is a naturalized American who used to work in the diplomatic corp. His own poetry is powerfully influenced by Whitman, O'Hara, and Lorca.

Sentimental Education

2024-09-08T15:10:00.006-04:00

Flaubert's contemporaries praised Sentimental Education for taking the moral pulse of his generation. Reading it at this radical and reactionary time, I think it takes the moral pulse of my own generation. Here are the fanatical ideologues on the left and right, the cynical opportunists, the pure-hearted idealists, the private egos, the public facades, the loves, the lusts, the confusions, the contusions. After Frederic Moreau and his friend Deslauriers have gone through so much personal and social upheaval, how does one read the ending of this highly ironic yet deeply passionate novel? It's not simply nostalgic, that's for sure:

They told one another the story at great length, each supplementing the other's recollections; and when they had finished:

'That was the best time we ever had,' said Frederic.

'Yes, perhaps you're right. That was the best time we ever had,' said Deslauriers.

(translated by Robert Baldick and Geoffrey Wall)

The Luzhin Defense

2024-08-27T16:48:00.002-04:00

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

Do you play chess? I do, and I used to play it every day during recess in secondary school with a friend who was as keen on it as I was. As I knew from that young age, chess is a sport. It requires intense focus, discipline, and the will to beat your opponent. It is also an art, as I also knew, because it demands creativity, subtlety, and a love of beauty. The sacrifice of a rook to launch a mating sequence. The stark precision of an endgame with just the kings and four pawns.

When I stood before the early Russian novels by Vladimir Nabokov in Eslite Bookstore in Kuala Lumpur, where I paid a short visit in August, it was an easy decision to pick up The Luzhin Defense. I knew the Russian writer loved chess almost as much as butterflies. I wanted to know how he would deal with the game in a work of fiction. From his third novel written in Russian, translated by Michael Scammell, I learned that chess is also a refuge from reality.

The pattern is set in the indulgent childhood of the protagonist. Loving his cosseted life in the country home too much and afraid of the challenges of starting school in town, Luzhin, Junior, escaped from the coach taking him to the train station and ran back to hide in the attic of his house. He was found and forced to start his career in the world, but he discovered chess, first from his aunt who is having an affair with his father, and then from an older suitor to his aunt who always brings her flowers. Chess becomes Luzhin's homely shelter as he ascends the ladder of the chess world rapidly and ignores the requirements of society, love, and even basic hygiene.

Just like chess, sports and the arts can become our refuge from reality too. When we ware caught up with the Olympics spectacle, we could stop watching the massacres in Gaza and Sudan. The inclusion of Myanmar in the Games normalized junta rule in that country. Sporting rivalry could potentially defuse political and military conflict—fight on the soccer field, not on the battlefield—but it doesn't.

Poetry, which is the form of art I know best, could be deployed to socio-political ends, and it is. Our press Gaudy Boy has published some of the best political poetry in Jeddie Sophronius' Interrogation Records, Jhani Randhawa's Time Regime, and Jim Pascual Agustin's Waking Up to the Pattern Left By a Snail Overnight. But as a practitioner of the dark art myself, I know intimately that writing about the thing is not the thing itself. When writing, I'm paying attention to, and enjoying, the sound and shape of words. I'm undisturbed at home, and not out on the streets, protesting.

The best political poetry, I think, betrays this guilty consciousness. Like all poetry, it is double-minded. It is an existential lesson underlined by Nabokov's The Luzhin Defense. The novel never gives us the actual chess defensive strategy, and Luzhin finds it in the end only by—. You will have to read the book to find out.

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We announced the finalists of the 2024 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize last Tuesday. You can find out who they are here. The finalists will read from their work in an online reading in September, when the winner will be announced. Sign up for details of what promises to be an exciting reading.

Jee Leong Koh
August 22, 2024

The Luzhin Defense and Lurkers

2024-08-20T15:14:00.001-04:00

I read Nabokov's third Russian novel The Luzhin Defence while on vacation in Penang, after picking up the book in Kuala Lumpur. The novel is very enjoyable. There is a deep paradox in Nabokov's treatment of his chess-playing protagonist: it is at once warm and cold. The warmth comes from the Bildungsroman mode, the loving recreation of a Russian setting, the tender analysis of exile, the sympathetic understanding of artistic passion. The cold comes from the art of fiction itself, since the author knows that his fictional creation cannot escape whatever fate he is designing for him. The logic of chess underlines, in this novel, the logic of fiction.

Appropriately, I started reading Sandi Tan's novel Lurkers when I returned from Malaysia to Singapore. Appropriately because Sandi grew up in Singapore. Her first novel The Black Isle is obviously based on Singapore. It is nothing like any Singaporean novels that I have read. She has lived in Los Angeles county for many years now, and I read Lurkers as her American novel. As in The Black Isle and her film Shirkers, the most compelling relationship in this new novel is that between a charismatic older man and an impressionable adolescent girl. The Korean parents do not rise above familiar types, although the novel's ending gives the mother an unexpected warmth. The aging gay horror writer is a caricature rather than a character, and his eventual adoption of the Korean girls quite incredible. The attempt to give a medieval cast to the modern set-up—the epigraph from Johan Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Ages speaks of life running to the extremes—does not quite stick. The writing is lively, funny, and naughty, so the novel is an enjoyable read, but it lacks the intensities of The Black Isle.

"The Singapore I Recognise"

2024-07-28T21:42:00.004-04:00

This book of essays by Singaporean journalist and activist Kirsten Han is informative, clear-eyed, and nuanced. Every Singapore should read it.

Walking to the Istana

2024-06-28T06:52:00.001-04:00

A poem for the 70 individuals who walked to Singapore's Istana to deliver 140 letters to the PM on 2 Feb 2024, as part of the National Day of Solidarity with Palestine. 3 of them--Sobikun Nahar, Siti Amirah Mohamed Asrori, and Annamalai Kokila Parvathi--were ridiculously charged with disturbing public order by illegally organizing, or abetting with organizing, a public procession in a prohibited area.

Walking to the Istana

They do not need a head nor do they want a tail.

They are all heads, all eyes, all mouths, all legs, all hands,

umbrellas up against the onslaught of the sun.

They are cool, and young as the crescent moon

lighting up lovers' rendezvous and drinking parties

and the unworldly debates of secret handshakes.

They know of others who also walked such roads,

when buses were divided into front and back,

when a state was crossed to pick up a handful of salt.

They understand they can easily be replaced

by those coming up behind them, even younger,

smarter, and stronger, running where they walk.

Rising up for democracy, peace, justice, equality,

if they do not fly a flag nor follow due process,

they, all of them, certainly walk with you, Progress.

Jee Leong Koh

Georgia Author of the Year

2024-06-27T11:40:00.002-04:00

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

Congratulations to Rahad Abir for winning the Georgia Author of the Year Award for literary fiction! We're so proud of you! Past winners include Malcolm Tariq, Ruby Lal, and Natasha Trethewey.

The award citation reads: "Bengal Hound is authentic and complex, and the storytelling skills on display here are impressive. At times the narrative becomes tight and abrupt, a mirror of what is happening with the protagonist. Overall, this is a vividly imagined, smartly edited novel. "

At its very core a story of love and loss, Bengal Hound traces the turbulent years of East Pakistan that led to a mass revolution, eventually culminating in the creation of Bangladesh. Rahad Abir conjures up characters haunted by memory and trauma in a society reeling from the pains of the Partition of British India. A powerful exploration of the dynamics of nationalism, family, religion, and gender relations, Bengal Hound reveals how the fracturing and making of countries leave indelible marks on its people. Read Bengal Hound to find out what the judges loved about it.

N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

Jee Leong Koh
June 27, 2024

The Way You Want To Be Loved

2024-06-25T12:53:00.001-04:00

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

Gaudy Boy is proud to publish this astonishing story collection The Way You Want To Be Loved, by Aruni Kashyap. It is praised by Amitav Ghosh as "poignant, finely crafted." We think you will love it as much as we do.

At a New Delhi conference, an Assamese writer is interrogated on why he writes about magical folktales instead of the insurgencies. A mother splashes around in the village lake to mask the lovemaking sounds of her son with another man. A newly-arrived graduate student in Minnesota navigates living arrangements with his white roommate, Mike, and Mike’s Indian girlfriend.

In agile and frank prose, The Way You Want to Be Loved tells the stories of queer, displaced lives from India’s Northeast, an underrepresented region in English fiction. A hybrid cast of characters represents the common people in these thirteen stories, whether western-trained academic or village sorcerer, army soldier or local politician, homeward-bound son or dutiful daughter-in-law. They wrestle with diasporic melancholia, the social pressures of familial duty, and the search for their own personhood, even as they live in a world where personhood is continually compromised and reshaped under oppressive forces larger than themselves. Aruni Kashyap offers up a powerful critique of the malfunctioning democracies of India and the US, deftly balancing devastation and tragedy with a darkly humorous tone that has readers questioning their laughter.

At its core, The Way You Want to Be Loved explores what it means to love, desire, and long for life under the duress of everyday and state-sanctioned violence and discrimination.

Aruni Kashyap is the author of His Father’s Disease: Stories and the novel The House With a Thousand Stories. Along with editing a collection of stories called How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency, he translated two novels from Assamese to English, published by Zubaan Books and Penguin Random House. He is the recipient of a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Faculty Research Grants in the Humanities and Arts Program, the Arts Lab Faculty Fellowship, and the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing to the University of Edinburgh. He is an Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia, Athens.

The book cover, designed by our talented Flora Chan, is filled nearly to the edges with the image of a bouncy tree. Read the book to find out why the cover matches the stories so evocatively. Preorder it now at Bookshop or Amazon. It's also distributed by Asterism and Ingram. Email Kim at klim@singaporeunbound.org for review pdf or author interview.

Jee Leong Koh
June 20, 2024