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Literature of Singapore

Encyclopedia : L : LI : LIT : Literature of Singapore

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The literature of Singapore comprises a collection of literary works by Singaporeans in the country's four main languagues: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

Contents

Introduction

While Singaporean literary works may be considered as also belonging to the literature of their specific languages, the literature of Singapore is viewed as a distinct body of literature portraying various aspects of Singapore society and forms a significant part of the culture of Singapore. A number of Singaporean writers such as Tan Swie Hian and Kuo Pao Kun have contributed work in more than one language; this reflects the influence across languages in the literary culture of this multi-ethnic, multi-language country. However, this cross-linguistic fertilisation is becoming increasingly rare and it is now increasingly thought that Singapore has four sub-literatures instead of one.

Literature in English

Singaporean literature in English started with the Straits-born Chinese community in the colonial era; it is unclear which was the first work of literature in English published in Singapore, but there is evidence of Singapore literature published as early as the 1830s. The first notable Singaporean work of poetry in English is possibly F.M.S.R., a pastiche of T. S. Eliot by Francis P. Ng, published in London in 1935. This was followed by Wang Gungwu's Pulse in 1950.

With the independence of Singapore in 1965, a new wave of Singapore writing emerged, led by Edwin Thumboo, Kirpal Singh, Goh Poh Seng, Lee Tzu Pheng and Arthur Yap. It is telling that many critical essays on Singapore literature name Thumboo's generation, rightly or wrongly, as the first generation of Singapore writers. Poetry is the predominant mode of expression; it has a small but respectable following since independence, and most published works of Singapore writing in English have been in poetry.

There were varying levels of activity in succeeding decades until the late 1990s when poetry in English in Singapore found a new momentum with a whole new generation of poets under the age of 40 now actively writing and publishing, not only in Singapore but also internationally. Some of the more notable include Boey Kim Cheng, Alvin Pang, Cyril Wong, Felix Cheong and Alfian bin Sa'at. The main theme of self-questioning, sometimes mixed with politics and individual looks on Singapore society, dominates the poetry of the younger generation. Local publishers like Ethos Books have been actively promoting their works.

Drama in English found expression in Goh Poh Seng, who was also a notable poet and novelist, and later in Kuo Pao Kun, who also wrote in Chinese, sometimes translating his works into English. The late Kuo was a vital force in the local theatre renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s, being the artistic director of Substation for many years. Some of his plays, like The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole (1984) and Lao Jiu (1990), are classics of the genre.

Fiction writing in English did not start in earnest until after independence. Short stories flourished as a literary form, the novel arrived much later. Although she began as a short story writer, Penang-born Catherine Lim has been Singapore's most widely read author, thanks partly to her first two books Little Ironies - Stories of Singapore (1978) and Or Else, The Lightning God and Other Stories (1980), which gained prestige by being incorporated into texts for the GCSE, as well as to her Asian themes of gender-dominance, which marked her as a distant cousin to Asian-American writers such as Amy Tan. She has also been writing novels, such as The Bondmaid (1998) and Following the Wrong Gods Home (2001), and publishing them to an international audience since the late 1990s. Rex Shelley hails from an earlier colonial generation, although he began publishing only in the early 1990s. His first novel The Shrimp People (1991) won a National Book Prize. Another National Book Prize winner Su-Chen Christine Lim's works are much more feminist-inclined, although she has moved beyond such distinctions in her latest novel A Bit of Earth (2004). Gopal Baratham, a neurosurgeon, started as a short story writer and later wrote politically-charged works like A Candle or the Sun (1991) and Sayang (1991), which courted some controversy when first published. Of the younger generation, Philip Jeyaretnam has shown promise but has not published a new novel since Abraham's Promise (1995), while Colin Cheong can lay claim to being Singapore's most prolific current author.

List of Singaporean writers

Selected works

English

Chinese

Malay

Tamil

See also

External links

 

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