
Image: Genevieve Chua, After the Flood #9, 2010. 50.8x76.2 cm hand-colored photograph. Courtesy of the artist.
The official languages of Singapore—Malay, Tamil, Mandarin, and English—reflect the country’s major ethnic groups as well as its colonial history. While Singapore’s governments may have been in frequent flux, its multilingual literature remains a consistent source of information about this pluralistic society, as writers look to earlier eras to explore how the past informs the present. Sa’eda Buang’s starstruck girl lives in a Bollywood fantasy while abuse and deception rage around her. Latha’s elderly woman mourns her lifelong friend and the lost Indian immigrant community of their childhood. Giant of Malay literature Masuri S.N. traces the impact of Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1974 on Malay writing of both countries. KTM Iqbal addresses audiences familiar and new to prove that throughout time and change, poetry remains constant. Wong Koi Tet’s childless man, desperate for an heir, resorts to superstition to jack up his potency, and Yeng Pway Ngon’s aging opera lover struggles to recapture lyrics and memories of a thwarted star tenor. And in another look at the social costs of economic policy, playwright Kuo Pao Kun exposes the personal wreckage left in the wake of the state’s aggressive pursuit of international financial status in the 1960s. We thank Dan Feng Tan and William Phuan for guest editing, and the Select Centre and the National Arts Council of Singapore for their support. Elsewhere, our feature goes seasonal with three ghost stories from Johary Ravaloson, Takako Arai, and Aziz BineBine.
In Those Days and These: Multilingual Singapore
These pieces paint a picture of a Singapore that has ceased to be.
There Was a Bridge in Tekka
The bridge is gone. The river is gone.
From “Opera Costume”
If this had been Hong Kong, surely he’d have become a movie star!
Hey, Wake Up!
We are not a run-of-the-mill company. We do not engage in run-of-the-mill business.
The Withered Cherry Tree
Today, she was the richest girl in the world.
Black Panther
One thought occupied his mind all this time: that he might not have a son to perform his last rites.
Malay Literature in the Wave of Singapore’s Cosmopolitanism
The art of poetry is closely linked to finding solace in the midst of the noise of a city.
The Visitor
All of us / wait / to receive you.
Reader
I strike out, rewrite.
Book Reviews

“Martutene” by Ramon Saizarbitoria
Reviewed by Carolyn Silveira
A disruptive romance as metaphor for the complexities of contemporary ethnic and political Basque identity.

“Limbo Beirut” by Hilal Chouman
Reviewed by Emily Lever
For six strangers, the brutality of May 2008 reawakens forgotten memories of the Lebanese Civil War.