What are these ghost orchids in Ismim Putera’s new story “Bunga”? Are they even orchids or not?
From salt to frozen yogurt, Valerie Eng takes us through a jumbled journey of flavors—equal parts liquid and sharp, joyful and grieving.
In this new story by Devanshi Khetarpal, an unsettling neighbor gets under the skin.
Do objects give off an aura? What about texts about objects? This playful new story by Glenn Diaz, featuring a weary encyclopedist, questions the credentials of literature.
Success and scandal makes this month a good time for global speculative fiction, according to Ng Yi-Sheng.
What else can a miscarriage bring but pain to a woman in a traditional marriage in Bangladesh? Find out in this new story by Sohana Manzoor.
With these three poems, Anuradha VIjayakrishnan attends to distance, belonging, and endings, showing how life endures even in the most hostile spaces.
What does letting go mean in the future? Shalini Ajay Singh attempts an answer in this new work of speculative fiction.
Eunice Lim reviews Gardens at Phoenix Park, by Wong Souk Yee, and finds subversive verve in its blurring of the boundary between fact and fiction.
What is this story “Doctor Pollux Lacoste,” by Atty Nicias J Alameda? Is it a parable, a satire, or a prophecy?
For Black History Month, Ng Yi-Sheng takes a look at the many genres that contemporary Black authors write in.
“The sea wind has upset the soil.” With great delicacy, Maggie Wang interlaces personal and domestic concerns with ecological troubles.
In her review of Hotel Oblivion by Cynthia Cruz, Annina Zheng-Hardy finds slippages and obsessions and, yes, beauty.
In her review of How Far the Light Reaches, by Sabrina Imbler, Zining Mok examines the author’s braiding of the lives of humans and sea creatures in ten essays.
In the spirit of State of Play: Poets of East & Southeast Asian Heritage in Conversation, edited by Eddie Tay and Jennifer Wong, we offer two reviews of this anthology of conversations, this one by Theophilus Kwek, another by Rona Luo, in order to put them in conversation with each other as well.
In the spirit of State of Play: Poets of East & Southeast Asian Heritage in Conversation, edited by Eddie Tay and Jennifer Wong, we offer two reviews of this anthology of conversations, this one by Rona Luo, another by Theophilus Kwek, in order to put them in conversation with each other as well.
In this essay, one of three winners of the 2023 Singapore Unbound Awards for the Best Undergraduate Critical Essays on Singapore and Other Literatures, Gan Chong Jing argues that Singaporean playwright Kuo Pao Kun creates a uniquely fluid form of allegorical theatre by infusing experimental, non-realist English language theatre with Chinese Xiangsheng performance techniques.
Ng Yi-Sheng reads the literature of indigenous peoples and discovers that his bookshelf is entangled with the non-indigenous voices of allies, anthropologists, authors or informants.
In “Mind the Gap”: Exploring Hwee Hwee Tan’s Portrayal of Cultural Tensions in a Modern, Globalising World,” one of the three winners of the 3rd Singapore Unbound Awards for the Best Undergraduate Critical Essays on Singapore and Other Literatures, Kelly Sng argues that Tan’s novels raise provocative questions about the limits of transnational capitalism and cultural fluidity in a modern, globalizing world.
One of three winners of the 3rd Singapore Unbound Awards for the Best Undergraduate Essays on Singapore and Other Literatures, “Chosen One’s Chosen Pronouns: Queer Identity as Messianic Belief in Neon Yan,” by Tan Yan Rong, examines the intersection of gender and religion, truth and belief, in Neon Yang’s Genesis of Misery and A Stick of Clay.
The exciting recovery of a previously unknown book-length poem by a Singaporean who migrated to Australia. Gwee Li Sui, the editor of A Walk with My Pig, describes the recovery not only of the work but also of the poet Mervin Mirapuri.
When the world, both human and natural, is all askew, what can you do? Three new poems by Ishita Basu Malik responds to such estrangement.
Two poems by Paul Catafago, a Palestinian living and writing in the diaspora.
Traveling over the holidays? Ng Yi-Sheng has a few meta, or not-so-meta, suggestions for you.
According to his translator Atar Hadari, the late Israeli poet Avraham Chalfi was “a character actor, a clown, a dandy, and a man about town in Tel Aviv.” He was also a poet beloved by the people for his romantic and mystical verses.
In this new story by A.J. Payler, Jamie Okuda finds himself at an unusual job interview.
New translations by Rahad Abir of two poems by the young revolutionary and Bengali poet Sukanta Bhattacharya.
How does one square the circle? Yap Hao Yang finds that impossible possibility in his review of Tse Hao Guang’s The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association.
To celebrate the Festival of Lights, Ng Yi-Sheng lights up our minds with his takes on five works of speculative fiction from South Asia and the diaspora.
A month of graphic novels? Glorious. Ng Yi-Sheng is our guide to the tragic, the fantastic, and the pandemic.