Experience Singapore Literature

What are you currently reading?
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

How many books do you currently own? Have you read them all?
More than 3000 books.. except for the reference books…i have read all.

What’s unique about your own library?
I have autographed copies of Jeffrey Archer, Othman Wok, Paul Bailey, Ben Okri,Michael Cunningham,Elizabeth Choy, Matthew Reilly just to name a few.

In the event of a fire (touch wood), what is/ are the book(s) that you will save? The Great Movie makers of Hollywood’s Golden Age by George Stevens Jr Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino

Pugalenthii is a successful entrepreneur, author, editor, life coach and scriptwriter. A former NS Captain from the Republic of Singapore Air Force, he has founded and owned the publishing firm, VJ Times International, where he published more than 170 Singaporean writers and poets over a period of 20 years.

He is one of Singapore’s most prolific horror writers, having created the successful best-selling horror series, ‘Nightmares’ which has over 30 titles. He has also written books in other genres and they are translated in many languages and are sold in 18 countries worldwide. His Singlish to English grammar book was a joint project with PCK to improve Speak Good English Campaign. More than 100 titles of his books can be found in the National Library. He has also forayed into conducting motivational talks in various schools and tertiary institutions and is currently working on a motivational book “Life Coaching for Students”. He has recently written and directed a short film, ‘Blood Lust’, the first in a 13 part horror series.

More of Pugalenthii is available at http://www.facebook.com/pugalenthii

Jean Tay graduated in 1997 with a double-degree in creative writing and economics from Brown University, USA.  For her fiction, she was awarded Weston Prize for Fiction from Brown, as well as the 1^st and 3^rd prizes for NAC’s Golden Point Short Story competition in 1995 and 2001 respectively.

Plays produced include “Water from the Well” (1998), “The Knot” (1999), “Hopper’s Women” (co-written with Cindy Koh, 2000), “Plunge” (2000), “Everything but the Brain” (2005, 2007) and “Boom” (2008).  Jean has also written the books for the musicals “The Admiral’s Odyssey” (2005), and “Man of Letters” (2006).

In July 2007, Jean was selected to attend the prestigious month-long International Playwriting Residency organised by the Royal Court Theatre in London, where the concept for the play “Boom” was  developed.  The play was first staged in 2008 by SRT, and has been selected as an ‘O’ and ‘N’ Level literature text for 2010.

What are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading “Frog under a Coconut Shell” by Josephine Chia, and enjoying it very much.  It’s a very well-written and touching piece of local fiction, which weaves together stories of her youth growing up in a kampong and her mother’s peranakan heritage, as well as her mother’s current struggle with Alzheimer’s.  I’ve also just been watching a couple of Jane Austen movie adaptations, and have been inspired to revisit some of my dog-eared Jane Austen novels (Emma, Mansfield Park).

How many books do you currently own?
I’m not sure exactly….Maybe around 300?  Although this includes my husband’s books, old Economics textbooks and outdated travel guides.   I’ve probably read most of them over the years, although I have most likely forgotten about half of what I’ve read. (That’s certainly true for my Economics textbooks!)

What’s unique about your own library?
It’s a pretty eclectic mix, although mostly fiction.  Somehow I’m not a big non-fiction or poetry reader.  But over the years, I realise that I’ve been accumulating more and more plays.  It’s a nice way to relive the plays that I’ve really enjoyed, as well as to appreciate those plays that I will never get a chance to see in person.  I think that reading a play also gives one a clearer sense of the writer’s craft and attention to detail, that you might sometimes miss in a live performance.

In the event of a fire (touch wood), what is/are the book(s) that you will save?
Definitely the Bible, I couldn’t live without it.  But if I have time, I’d probably try to grab a couple of my favourite fantasy novelists too, for some escapist reading, like JRR Tolkein or Guy Gavriel Kay.  And of course, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

What are you currently reading?
I am re-reading the book S. Rajaratnam: The Prophetic and the Political which presents a selection of his speeches and writings.  It is edited by Chan Heng Chee and Obaid ul Haq. I have just completed writing the first volume of Rajaratnam’s biography, The Singapore Lion, and am now working on the second volume. This requires me to hit the refresh button in my brain! Re-reading his speeches from various sources is part of that process.

How many books do you currently own? Have you read them all?
Oh, hundreds and hundreds. I have a habit of buying more books than I can reasonably read at one time, so I am constantly expanding my bookshelves and building new ones in every nook and cranny. There is a stack of books I have meant to read but have yet to get to. I find that I do my best uninterrupted reading when away on a holiday, and always travel with a book or two. Few things are more enjoyable than savouring a well-written book. In Singapore, my reading is often for research related to work, such as for Parliament speeches.

What’s unique about your own library?
My eclectic library has been transformed over the last five years. It used to be packed with books on philosophy and politics. Also novels. But since 2005, I have been immersing myself in biographies – of Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mandela, Nehru, Mao, etc – because I was embarking on writing my first book, the biography of S Rajaratnam. I read to learn what worked in a biography and what didn’t, and what made a great biography. Then in 2007, I married Graham Berry, the former CEO of the Scottish Arts Council. He is a very literary man, and has a formidable collection of books. His library is now fused with mine and still growing rapidly. It is wonderful to be married to a man who also loves books and discussing them.

In the event of a fire (touch wood), what is/ are the book(s) that you will save?
I had the privilege of helping Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew to edit his memoirs, The Singapore Story, and From Third World to First. He wrote inscriptions in the copies he gave me when they were first published. In the first, he wrote: “Many thanks for most helpful suggestions that improved my text.” In the second, he wrote: “To Irene Ng, whose skilful editing made this a more readable book.” MM Lee was very gracious in writing these words, which made these two books especially precious to me.

Taken in 2006, at the University of Edinburgh when Irene was awarded the Honorary Professorial Fellowship

Born in Penang, Malaysia, Irene Ng came to Singapore to further her studies in 1980. She is now a Singaporean. She studied sociology, English language and philosophy at the National University of Singapore and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Social Science in 1986. She later obtained her Master of Science in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In June 2006, she was awarded an Honorary Professorial Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. From 1986 to 2001, she worked as a journalist for the Singapore Press Holdings and was the senior political correspondent of The NewPaper and The Straits Times.

She has won journalism and writing awards. In 2001, she gave up journalism to join politics in Singapore. She currently serves as the Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC. After joining politics, she worked as director of programmes and senior research fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, and later, as a director at National Trades Union Congress. In 2009, she returned to her passion for writing as a full-time writer. She is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,Singapore.

Josephine Chia

Josephine Chia writes both fiction and non-fiction and has published seven books. Her first literary break was when she was one of the winners of UK’s Ian St. James Awards in 1992 for her short story, Tropical Fever, which was subsequently published in an anthology by Harper Collins. Since then, Josephine has won several other literary prizes and is a member of UK’s Society of Authors and UK Society of Women Writers & Journalists. She lives in West Sussex, England.

Find out more at www.josephinechia.com

Take a peek at Phine’s library and what she’s reading now.

What are you currently reading? I generally read a fiction and Non-fiction in the same period depending on my mood.

Current Fiction: David Lodge: A Deaf Sentence

Non-fiction: Bill Bryson: Shakespeare

How many books do you currently own? 1,000 books!! They are falling off my shelves and I am slowly getting rid of them.

Have you read them all? Yes! Some of them more than once.

What’s unique about your own library? Besides fiction, I read philosophy books, yoga and spiritual. Many of the books are also used for my teaching the respective subjects, Creative Writing, Yoga & Teaching English as a Second Language.

In the event of a fire (touch wood), what is/ are the book(s) that you will save?  My Collins Millennium Dictionary & The Dalai Lama Book of Daily Meditations.

Josephine's library

We love libraries and we know you do too. If you would like to introduce your 
library to us (whether it is your own library at home or even your school or 
office library) and if we find it interesting, we will feature it in our monthly 
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also welcome. Send all these to golibrary@nlb.gov.sg! We would love to hear from 
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