Credit: SC Shekar Bio: Dr. Dipika Mukherjee’s collection of travel essays, WRITER’S POSTCARDS (Penguin Random House SEA), was published in October 2023. Her work is included in The Best Small Fictions 2019 and appears in World Literature Today, Asia Literary Review, Del Sol Review, and Chicago Quarterly Review, Newsweek, Los Angeles Review of Books, Hemispheres, Orion and more, and she has been translated into French, Portuguese, Bengali and Mandarin Chinese. She is the author of the novels SHAMBALA JUNCTION (Aurora Metro, winner of the Virginia Prize for Fiction) and ODE T ..read more

 T.A. Morton talks to Dawn Farnham about her shift into crime fiction Though she has now returned to her native Australia, novelist Dawn Farnham is a former expat in Singapore, a place which inspired much of her fiction, including the Straits Quartet, which follows the struggle of two lovers, Charlotte Macleod, sister of Singapore’s Head of Police, and Zhen, triad member and once the lowliest of coolies, who beats the odds to become a wealthy Chinese merchant. Tokyo Time marks Dawn's first foray into the historical crime genre. It is again set in Singapore, against the backdrop of the ..read more

Safinah Danish Elahi talks to Devika Misra about the pitfalls and possibilities of publishing in Pakistan. English readership in Pakistan is relatively small; none of the big five publishing houses has a significant base in the country. But Pakistani writer and independent publishing house owner Safinah Danish Elahi argues that English fiction by Pakistani writers deserves more attention. She contends that readership patterns are slowly evolving. Although Pakistani fiction publishing is still very much in its infancy, she believes that the role of independent publishers is more crucial than e ..read more

Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) is currently underway - it runs at various venues until November 26.  To suit our strange times, this year’s theme is plot twist - embracing strange approaches, unexpected outcomes, sudden changes in direction, unlikely connections, and the unpredictable. Devika Misra reports. The opening of SWF saw panellists debate the proposition: This House Believes AI is the Better Writer. Is AI an opportunity or a threat to literature? Can it make good writers better? These were questions addressed by panellists Colin Goh, the Singaporean writer, and creator of the ..read more

 Devika Misra reports. Singaporean-born, Paris-based Fiona Sze-Lorrain is a poet, translator, musician, and now novelist. Her debut work of fiction Dear Chrysanthemums can be read as a novel or as separate interconnected short stories. Set in Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Paris, and New York, the protagonists are all victims of difficult circumstances; young Asian women, alone, vulnerable and struggling to survive displacement and sometimes violence and assault. Despite suffering lifelong mental anguish, they prove emotionally resilient and are keen to connect with the wider world as t ..read more

World War I in the Far East was a sideshow in the grand scheme of things, but it had long-reaching implications, setting up further conflict in the region. Nevertheless, the main action, the Battle of Tsingtau, was full of drama, bravery, and suffering, which is covered in the book – The Siege of Tsingtau: The German-Japanese War 1914 by Charles Stephenson. Tsingtau, more commonly known as Tsingtao or Qingdao, is a city on China’s Yellow Sea coast and as such, was coveted by imperial powers. Following the murder of two German priests, Germany took advantage and forced China to lease Tsingtau ..read more

Courtesy of Author About the Author: Sharon Wee was born and raised in Singapore, graduating from the National University of Singapore. She worked for Mars Confectionery in Hong Kong and China in the 1990s. She has an MBA from New York University and resides in Manhattan where she trained at the French Culinary Institute. Her recipes have been featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post and she has given interviews about her Peranakan heritage. She chronicles her food experiences on Instagram @nonya.global. Sharon frequently returns to Singapore.  ..read more

  In the distant future, humanity clusters in small villages, reduced to a medieval style of living, while monsters, demons, and vampires roam the outskirts of civilization. It’s a hard life, full of danger, witchcraft, and death – this is the world of Vampire Hunter D. Written by Hideyuki Kikuchi in 1983, Vampire Hunter D is the first entry into a long-running novel series. To date, there are 40 novels, along with numerous short stories and novellas, spanning an enormous time period, locales, and characters, 30 of which have been translated into English. I, like most Westerners, discove ..read more

 No Funeral for Nazia is Pakistani journalist and writer Taha Kehar’s third and latest work of fiction. The story highlights some of the complexity in his hometown Karachi. He speaks to Devika Misra. TK: There are two different Pakistans, You have the Pakistan of the elite and then you have the Pakistan that is fairly steeped in middle class values.” People tend to think of Pakistan as a conservative Muslim country. This narrative however, tells the life story of an unconventional Pakistani woman; upper-class writer and single mother Nazia. Her lovers include her brother-in-law, a fema ..read more

Southeast Asia’s largest literary extravaganza, The Singapore Writers Festival, will be held next month. Now in its 26th edition, this year’s theme is “Plot Twist”.  Devika Misra spoke to Festival Director Pooja Nansi about what audiences can expect at the upcoming event. 2023, SWF says, is all “about unexpected combinations and unlikely connections.” …Such as?  …Literature and hip hop for one. Nansi admits “being a bit of a hip-hop nerd” herself, she wanted to celebrate the movement’s 50th anniversary. PN: “We're exploring its very close relationship with poetry and how it's beco ..read more