SWF: Quick Round Up Part 2

 Darling, You're Fabulous: An Hour With Tan France

A most enjoyable hour long chat moderated very smoothly by Maya Menon with Queer Eye host Tan France, who has not only written a memoir but now also runs his own fashion brand Was Him, a spin off of Tan France's middle name Washim, the back story of which was sadly from his childhood days of being bullied. Tan spoke about how he came to write his memoir and some of his most important values regarding style vs fashion, and why dress empowers and enhances self-esteem, how he loves to cook and how that came from being made to watch his mother cook, and how he loves styling women more than men. He spoke plainly about the discrimination faced by celebrities of South Indian descent in Hollywood, and how wearing a Sherwani on the red carpet was a political statement. Tan was not just entertaining and approachable and so likeable, but his political conscience and pride in his own culture was infectious. To him, styling people is to allow for self-expression, to bring out a quality that already exists in the wearer. Asked if he had any advice for stylish Singaporean men in terms of how to dress themselves, he couldn't resist making a gentle poke at the tightness of their clothes, which to him looked so uncomfortable: "save sexy time for behind closed doors, I don't need to see everything on the street." And in case you didn't know, Tan's comfort food is dhal, and he loves cake so much he eats it every day! Honestly, I so agree. There is nothing so dire in life that cannot be solved with a slice of cake.

‘Shen Yang does not legally exist.’ Nicky Harman reflects on a memoir by a victim of China’s One-Child Policy, and its unexpected impact on readers.

More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter (Balestier, 2021) is Shen Yang’s story of growing up as an ‘excess-birth’ or ‘illegal’ child. She was born as a second daughter during the years of China’s one-child-per family policy (1980s to 2015). Although the policy was strictly enforced, a traditional preference for boys meant that families determined to produce a son and heir, often tried for more than one pregnancy. Baby girls were often aborted, abandoned, or adopted overseas. However, numerous second, third, and even fourth daughters survived, and grew up to suffer the consequences of their illegal status. 

 Shen Yang does not legally exist. Her official ID is still the fake document obtained so that she could attend school, by the aunt and uncle who fostered her. 

There is very little literature documenting the experiences of ‘illegals’ like Shen Yang. As a result, those who can read English (Shen Yang’s book has not yet been published in Chinese) are surprised, and often shaken, to find themselves and their lives reflected in her book. Shen Yang told me yesterday how the audience reacted at the launch of More Than One Child at the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai. 

13-11-2021, Shen Yang launches her memoir at the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai.

She writes: ‘The audience was hooked by my speech from the beginning to the very end, and some even cried. One girl in the front cried twice, which distracted me a bit and I almost forgot my lines. She was also an excess-birth child who had been adopted away from her family. I managed to give her a huge hug after the event. It was very moving. Then later another girl approached me, and told me she was also adopted. She makes documentaries now, and she wants to make a documentary with me about excess-birth children.’

Indie Spotlight: Building a community by writing - How my memoir about divorce connected people from around the world during the pandemic

Indie Spotlight is a column by WWII historical fiction author Alexa Kang. The column regularly features hot new releases and noteworthy indie-published books, and popular authors who have found success in the new creative world of independent publishing. 

 

One of the advantages of indie publishing is the freedom to bring our work to readers without adhering to the traditional model of book production. The freedom to share our work in progress with readers can help a writer determine whether her work resonates with the audience, and helps the writer improve her skills along the way by readers’ feedback. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing to you author Ranjani Rao. During the year of pandemic, when we were all stuck at home, Ranjani wrote a memoir on her divorce experience. While writing, she began sharing her progress via a subscription letter. Occasionally, her subscribers would receive sneak peaks of excerpts of her book. Through sharing, she not only built her readership, but created an entire community for people with marital problems who were looking for someone to articulate their feelings. 

As an indie author myself, I can say for certain that knowing our work touches the lives of our readers, and that our writing gave them emotional release, is one of our biggest rewards for our hard work and efforts.  And now, over to Ranjani to tell you her amazing journey. . .  

Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness guest post by Reshma Ruia

 

Reshma Ruia is an award winning British Indian writer. She is the author of two novels, Something Black in the Lentil Soup and Still Lives, (out in 2022). Her novel manuscript, A Mouthful of Silence, was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Award. Her poetry collection, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties was awarded the 2019 Word Masala Award. Reshma’s work has appeared in British and international journals and anthologies and has been commissioned by the BBC. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani, a writers’ collective of British South Asian writers. Her writing explores the preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging. 

Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness is her new short story collection. The stories explore universal themes of identity, culture and home and are about characters who are grappling with the socio-economic upheavals of contemporary life - everyday people whose lives oscillate between worlds and are shaped and reshaped by an imperative to anchor to a map or a feeling. A lonely woman develops an unhealthy obsession with a celebrity writer. A young man attends the funeral of his gay lover. A feisty woman escapes a life of domestic drudgery. Characters confronting ageing, love and displacement with anger, passion and quiet defiance. Characters in search of new beginnings and old certainties.   

So, over to Reshma…

Lion City Lit

Ken Hickson reviews recent titles published in Singapore, but with wide international appeal.

SWF: Quick Round-up Part One

5th: Opening Night

Marc Nair as host. Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth & Trade & Industry Ms. Low Yen Ling spoke about the resiliency of the arts community during the pandemic, and the switched-up ability to deliver content virtually. Festival Director Pooja Nansi spoke about the choice of theme: Guilty Pleasures (the cornucopia this promises), and also the politics of pleasure and what the relationship is between guilt and pleasure. There were five amazing readings: both Firdaus Sani's ode and Asnida Daud's beautifully-sung paean to the Orang Laut, bani haykal's rapid-fire rap about the future in the Malay language, Cyril Wong on lovers (wonderfully surfacing the subversiveness within the gay pink background and the food symbols of ice-cream within a state context), Marc Nair on his cat, and last but not least, Mrigaa Sethi's affecting poems about small daily joys and its sense of place.

The land remembers: New poetry by Laura Jane Lee and Esther Vincent Xueming

Guest review by Crispin Rodrigues

October was a stellar month for debuts with both Laura Jane Lee’s flinch & air as well as Esther Vincent’s Red Earth published. Both these collections deal with social and cultural memory: what we inherit from those who came before, and how we bear witness to the present. In this, they speak of a new generation of poets who are grappling with their literary lineages, while looking ahead to the concerns of today.

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In one of his lectures, James Joyce noted that ‘The Irishman, finding himself in another environment, outside Ireland, very often knows how to make his worth felt’. This could not be far from the truth when reading Laura Jane Lee’s flinch & air (Out-Spoken Press, 2021), which portrays women in exile through its political and familial narratives.

The first half of the collection focuses on the lineage of women in constructing the self, a narrative too often forgotten in family trees since the experience of relocation or displacement is usually presented as a masculine adventure narrative. Here, we see the weaving of poems from the perspective of multiple women related to Lee, and their stories, and the silences around them, have shaped Lee’s experiences as the central protagonist of the collection.