Literature
From Betty of Balmoral Road to Emily of Emerald Hill: A New Look At Stella Kon’s Classic Play
A study of early drafts of Emily of Emerald Hill reveals fascinating choices and paths not taken.
Joseph Conrad’s Singapore
Joseph Conrad’s visits to Singapore in the late 19th century are immortalised in some of his novels, such as Lord Jim, The End of the Tether and The Shadow-Line.
A Plethora of Tongues: Multilingualism in 1950s Malayan Writing
From the melting pot of cultures and languages in postwar Singapore emerged the search for a Malayan identity, negotiated and presented through multilingualism in Malayan literature.
Interview with Rachel Heng
The Great Reclamation is a work of historical fiction set in Singapore that has received rave reviews from the New Yorker and the New York Times. A coming-of-age love story, the novel took Singaporean author Rachel Heng five years of research into topics such as land reclamation, the Japanese Occupation, and postwar politics in Singapore. We speak to her about her book, her research process, and the challenges of writing historical fiction.
Panton Malaijoe dan Portugees: A Rediscovered Manuscript
A forgotten manuscript found in the archive of a Portuguese museum offers an insight into the languages and traditions of a unique community in the Dutch East Indies.
A Different Sky: The Other Side of the Looking Glass
Meira Chand recounts how hours of listening to oral history interviews permeated her subconscious and created a memory that she could call her own when writing her novel.
The Borobudur, Mysterious Gold Plates and Singing Maps
Unsolved historical puzzles from Southeast Asia are key elements of the recently published thriller The Java Enigma by debut novelist Erni Salleh.
跨境影响、情系侨乡: 新加坡金门会馆特藏
The National Library recently received a sizable collection of letters, documents, books and other paper ephemera from the Kim Mui Hoey Kuan. Lee Meiyu examines the historical links the clan association has forged between Singapore and Kinmen.
Book Review: The Year 1000
The Year 1000 When Explorers Connected the World and Globalization Began.
On Writers and Their Manuscripts
No great work of literature is completed in just one draft. In an age where writers have gone paperless, novelist Meira Chand ponders over the value of manuscripts, and what they might reveal about a writer’s thought process.
Don’t Mention the Corpses: The Erasure of Violence in Colonial Writings on Southeast Asia
History may be written by the victors, but what they conveniently leave out can be more telling. Farish Noor reminds us of the violent side of colonial conquest.