4 Edogawa Ranpo Horror Stories

Edogawa Ranpo is synonymous with Japanese horror and mystery fiction. Using a pen name based off of Edgar Allen Poe, (try saying it three times fast), Taro Hirai wrote many short stories and novels as Ranpo (sometimes Romanized as Rampo).

Sun Jung, author of Bukit Brown, chats with Elaine Chiew

Sun Jung received her Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne and was a research fellow at both Victoria University and the National University of Singapore. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a writer for media production companies and cultural magazines in Los Angeles and Seoul. During this time, she also collaborated with Korean film producers on script development. Ever since her first visit in 2012 to Bukit Brown, one of the largest Chinese cemeteries outside of China, she has been fascinated by the stories of those who were buried there. After leaving her academic career behind, she devoted herself to writing this novel inspired by some of these tales. Previous published works were her book of essays, The Letter, I Sent You (1991) and her academic book Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption(2011).

Book Synopsis:

Bukit Brown follows the gripping journey of Ji-won, lonely and lost in modern day cosmopolitan Singapore, who time travels to nineteenth century British Malaya and finds her true self through experiencing the deplorable lives of migrant workers, the veiled enmity between Chinese secret societies and a lavish Peranakan lifestyle.

The novel begins with Hong-jo receiving an email from her old friend Ji-won, who ardently requests her to come to Singapore. However, upon arriving in Singapore, Hong-jo learns that Ji-won has taken her own life, three days prior. In addition, Julian, a friend of Ji-won, informs Hong-jo that she had time-travelled through a grave in Bukit Brown, the very same grave where Ji-won eventually hanged herself. Hong-jo and Julian learn that Ji-won had time travelled four times – Penang in 1862 and 1865, Singapore in 894 and 1959 – and they gradually uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. 

Margaret Kartomi talks about Performing the Arts of Indonesia

Margaret Kartomi is Professor of Music at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, in Melbourne. She is author of numerous publications on the music cultures of Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia.

She edited Performing the Arts of Indonesia: Malay Identity and Politics in the Music, Dance and Theatre of the Riau Islands, a new book exploring the artistic culture of Indonesia’s recently autonomous Riau Islands Province, Kepulauan Riau, colloquially referred to by its acronym, Kepri.  

Located in the centre of the Malay-speaking world of Southeast Asia, Kepri shares a border with Singapore and Malaysia and spans the Strait of Melaka and the South China Sea. Its 2,408 or so islands are sprinkled across its waters "like a shake of pepper" (Segantang Lada). Since the mid-19th century Kepri has widely been regarded as both the birthplace of modern Malay and its literature, and also as a centre of Islamic knowledge. Like Aceh, it acquired a reputation as "the verandah of Mecca", thanks to the large numbers of pilgrims who departed from its shores over the centuries. 

Margaret here explains how the book's contributors offer fresh new perspectives on Kepri's arts and artists.

Call for short stories on everyday life during Khmer Rouge era

The Khmer Writers Association is collaborating with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) to organise a short story competition on the topic of life under the Khmer Rouge, with the winner receiving the Sleuk Rith Literature Award.

To preserve the historical record of Cambodians during the Pol Pot regime and promote Khmer literature, the story must be about the everyday lives of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge.

“Contestants wishing to enter should write an original composition about the daily lives of Cambodians in Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea. However, the story should not focus on genocide,” the Khmer Writers Association said this week.

My Travels in Ding Yi. Nicky Harman looks at the latest translated novel from Shi Tiesheng

One of the most interesting novels to come out in translation this year is My Travels in Ding Yi (ACA Publishing, 2019) by Shi Tiesheng (1951-2010). 

Shi's writing ranges widely, from disability, to reflections on philosophy and religion, to magical surrealism, to an entertaining vignette on football and a meditation on his local park and his mother. However, he first became famous for writing his personal experiences of being disabled. One of his most famous short stories is The Temple of Earth and I  (translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping), in which he talks movingly about the frustrations he faced, and how he and his mother struggled to cope. Back in the 1980s, discrimination against the disabled was embedded into the language and society alike. Sarah Dauncey in her paper, Writing Disability into Modern Chinese Fiction, Chinese Literature Today, 6:1 (2017) says that '...canfei 残废 (invalids) was still the accepted equivalent to the English terms disability and disabled with all its retained connotations of uselessness and rubbish as reflected in particular by the fei 废 character.'

Language as an Identifying Force: Pooja Nansi on the SWF 2019

We are so excited about the opening of the Singapore Writers Festival! In less than two weeks, writers from all walks of life will grace stages at the Singapore Arts House and other venues to deliver lectures, workshops, readings, and even to perform rap!

Singapore Writers Festival has established itself as a dynamic and current autumnal literary event. Last year more than 25,000 literature enthusiasts attended the program based around the possibilities represented by 界 jiè, meaning world or universe.

This year’s theme is A Language of Our Own, and the Festival invites us to contemplate the multi-dimensional impact of language on both ourselves and on others. SWF runs from November 1st to November 10th, and you can see a programme here.

The woman who worked hard to bring this year’s festival to life is director Pooja Nansi. A poet and performer, she received a 2016 Young Artist Award, and is also Singapore’s first Youth Poet Ambassador. We caught up with Pooja to learn a little more about the processes behind Singapore Writers Festival and her hopes for what it will achieve.

Shanghai After Pearl Harbour

Indie spotlight focusses on self-published authors and self-publishing. Alexa Kang is a Boston-based, Chinese-American author. She publishes her World War II historical fiction trilogy, Shanghai Story, through her own house, Lakewood Press. Alexa has previously shared her experiences writing the first two of these books with Asian Books Blog readers. Today is the publication day of the third and final book in the series, Shanghai Yesterday.

Shanghai Yesterday follows Clark Yuan, the Western-educated son of a prominent Chinese family in Shanghai and former a KMT operative, as he joins the Chinese secret police’s underground resistance movement. The story also continues with Eden Levine, a Jewish refugee from Munich, as she and the Western press in Shanghai work to expose the atrocities committed by Germany and Japan to the world.

Alexa will here discuss a little bit about her trilogy, followed by a more detailed examination of the Jewish and immigrant experience in occupied Shanghai after 1941.

So, over to Alexa...