It draws upon his influential collection Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation (2000), on the country's politics of comfort and control, and from Singapore, Incomplete (2017), on its underdeveloped democracy. Updated for the impending transition to a new generation of leaders, this 20th anniversary edition of Air-Conditioned Nation offers critical reflections on continuity and change in Singapore’s unique political culture.

    Between the rigorous demands of school and taking care of his younger sibling, Yong deals with the death of Ah Por, upheavals in his family, run-ins with the neighbourhood gang leader, infatuation and finally, the end of a friendship.Set in a Housing Development Board (HDB) estate, Gone Case is a coming-of-age story with many memorable moments. It won the Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1996.

    11, No. 1, June 2017 "Gresham's surrealistic stories, at their best, shake us from within, and deepen the notion that we are islands of consciousness; in this way, they compel us to confront our own intellectual detachments and emotional blindspots in order for us to engage better with the world. They are also fundamentally stories about our modern world, its cross-cultural realities, and the fractured lives we lead in them. We Rose Up Slowly is an absorbing and disturbing read definitely worth spending an afternoon with." Sam Ng in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, July 2016 Read more about the book on the We Rose Up Slowly Facebook Page or on the author's website.

    It appears to be suicide, by a cocktail of morphine, alcohol and Valium. But upon investigation by a CID inspector, who might not be what he seems, the family discover there may be far more sinister circumstances behind his death, reaching the uppermost echelons of government. Death of a Perm Sec exposes the dark heart of power politics, from the country’s tumultuous post-independence days to the socio-political landscape of the 1980s.

    This is the man who picks his nose on the bus, who will fight for his country and fight you to do it his way. He will shout you into submission while astounding you with his tenderness towards his wife. His standard answer to all you questions is "nothing." Singaporean to the core, this volume of short stories narrated in a mixture of colloquial Singlish and standard English reinvents classic prose forms from the ghost story to the university admissions essay through the figure of Uncle.

    As she accepts her fate and marries, religious upheaval is splitting the country and forcing her family to find a new home.In 2014, her granddaughter, molecular biologist Nimita Sachdev, escapes India to run away from the prospect of an arranged marriage. Staking out a future in Singapore, she faces rising anger against immigrants and uncertainty about her new home.Two generations apart, these two women walk divergent paths but face the same quandaries: who are we, and what is home?

    Jennani Durai is an exciting new voice in literature, a writer to watch!” –Tayari Jones, multi-award-winning author of An American MarriageA teenager discovers his grandfather's secret identity only after his death. A young immigrant to 1940s Singapore is convinced the end-times are nigh. A man is tasked with bringing the corpse of his estranged brother home from Phuket. A reporter is torn between doing her a job and respecting her friend’s privacy.From obituaries and job ads to crime reports and horoscopes, Regrettable Things That Happened Yesterday is a collection of ten short stories connected by the motif of newspapers, and the unexpected ways they end up affecting our lives.

    Once a bright teenager full of optimism, she faced uncertainty and found no support from family, government agencies and welfare groups. She had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. When she started living on a beach in Sembawang, she discovered a community of people—families—who were homeless just like her. They stuck together and watched out for each other, even when there were raids. She learned that in prosperous Singapore, the homeless are not always identifiable by appearance alone.Months later, journalists eventually uncovered Liyana’s story and how she navigated a bureaucracy of obstacles. Today she is a successful entrepreneur and this is her memoir.

    A band of swordsmen on a failed mission. The forbidden love of Zheng He, the great Chinese Admiral. A young daughter forming a strange bond with her deceased father’s cat. Presenting ten stories in his fifth collection, O Thiam Chin plumbs the joy and despair, hopes and fears of men and women caught up by their past and confounded by lost loves. Taut, dark and visceral, these stories reveal, once again, the mysteries that lie in the heart of man.

    His life consists of reading, working and visiting his parents' house to rearrange his piles of "collectibles". He has only one friend, another teacher who has managed to force Sukhin into a friendship by sheer doggedness.While on an errand one afternoon in Chinatown, he encounters a homeless person who recognises him. This chance reunion turns Sukhin's well-planned life upside down, and the pair learns about love and sacrifice over their shared fondness for cake.

    Within hours, hundreds are dead. What happened? The true story of one of history's most tragic and shocking disasters...in which aviation, terrorism, a sudden change in the weather and plain old bad luck made for a ruinous mix. This gripping novella length work unravels the mind-boggling facts of this catastrophe as a compelling, action-packed and haunting tale of the human condition that will have you turning the pages to the very end.

    Boom tells the story of an elderly woman and her property agent son in Singapore, who are struggling over the potential en bloc sale of their home. Their destinies become interwoven with that of an idealistic civil servant, Jeremiah, who is facing the greatest challenge of his career—persuading a reluctant corpse to yield its memories. Boom is a quirky yet poignant tale about the relocation of both dead and living, and how personal stories get left behind in the inexorable march of progress.Written by economist-turned-playwright Jean Tay, Boom was conceptualised at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2007, and developed and staged by the Singapore Repertory Theatre in September 2008. It was nominated for Best Original Script for The Straits Times’ Life! Theatre Awards in 2009 and is now an O- and N-Level Literature text in Singapore schools.“Jean Tay is one of the most gifted playwrights I have come across in years.” —Gaurav Kripalani, Artistic Director, Singapore Repertory Theatre

    Throughout are interwoven the themes of memory, loss, language, identity and cultural reclamation.Similarly, it is a reflective and provocative journey of self-discovery; a journey the reader may also take to explore what it means to exist at the confluence of being Singaporean and being Eurasian, and to interrogate the liminal space between two cultures, Asian and European, occupied by this community.

    You never mourned loudly, in the streets. You never stopped (couldn’t stop) to wonder if drowning parts ofyourself was a mistake. You never kissed them goodbye.Why didn’t you kiss them goodbye?Was it too hard?Were you ashamed?Of them, or of you?Don’t tell me to be quiet.You need to hear this. Christina Hart, bestselling author of Empty Hotel Rooms Meant for Us, Letting Go Is an Acquired Taste, and There Is Beauty In the Bleeding releases her new poetry chapbook, written in second person POV, which focuses on love, loss, and hope.