Meet novelist, short-story writer and children’s author Anita Desai in person!
Don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to speak to one of the world’s most acclaimed writers!
Where: The Pod, National Library Building
When: 25 August 2008, 6:30 – 9:00pm
Admission is Free. All are Welcome.
Seats are limited and are on a first-come-first-serve-basis
Write your own Haiku of at least a paragraph on the following topic:
“What i like best about Singapore.” Competition is open only for students 16 years and below.
Write a short write up of about 100-200 words on the following topic:
“If you can go abroad,where would you go? What would you miss about Singapore and why?”. Competition is open only for students, 17 years and above.
You may send your entries via these channels:
Email: readsingapore@mph.com.sg
Snail Mail:
MPH Distributors 12 Tagore Drive #02-01,Habitat Warehouse
Singapore 787621
OR: Fax: 65 6457 0314
You can even drop off your entries at 4 MPH outlets at:
MPH RafflesCity 252 North Bridge Road #B1 - 24/25/26Raffles City Shopping Centre
S(179103)
Mon - Sun: 10.00 am to 10.00 pm
MPH CityLink Mall
One Raffles Link #B1 - 26A
CityLink Mall S(039393)
Sun - Thur: 10.00 am to 10.00 pm
Fri, Sat, Sun & PH: 10.00 am to 10.30 pm
MPH Robinson Road
63 Robinson Road # 01-02
Afro-Asia Building S(068894)
Mon to Fri: 10.00 am to 7.00 pm
Sat: 10.00 am - 3.00 pm
MPH Novena Square
238 Thomson Road #02-25/26/27/28
Novena Square S(307683)
Mon - Sun: 11.00 am - 9.00 pm
Closing date :Aug 15 2008
Novels
Mithavai- Driftwood.by Nanjil Nadan
Shanmugam, the protagonist is a man who seeks new prospects in the city of Mumbai but suffers and yearns for his home in the country.
Peyar Iiathaa Orin Pagal Velai by S.Ramakrishnan.
An exclusive Read! Singapore edition. It contains 10 short stories based on the theme Home and Away, specially selected by the author himself for this campaign.
Short Stories
Thooliyum Thottilum- The Cradle, a selected story from Manakum Malligai by Thangaraju.
Better pay drives a young Indian mother to leave her baby to become a maid in Singapore. In a newly found home, she develops a special bond with the family’s newborn.
Mannukkul Vairam-Hidden Diamond, a selected story from Singapoor Kulanthaigal.- by Se Ve Shanmugam.
In this story, Kanagasabapathy an Indian immigrant makes Singapore his home. When his daughter raises the issue of love marriage, he faces a dilemma in seeking his wife’s approval and blessings.
Haruman Kencana (Valuable Scent) by Zaharah Nawawi
The novel is a narration of an experience undergone by a young and naive Malaysian girl, Kencana, a first class graduate who was given the sponsorship by Dr Farhana, a member of the Board of Directors of a local company, to attend a 3-year full course to be trained as a perfume-making specialist of international standard in Grasse, Paris so as to produce perfume for the Muslim market worldwide. In France, Kencana learned about people and the real life, coping with the hardships and adjusting to people in a foreign country, from being a sponsored trainee- observing the raw natural ingredients into the process of perfume-making, to being jobless and helpless after the sudden death of her sponsor and the Asian economic crisis downturn which affect many companies including Kencana’s sponsor company.
She quickly learned to be independent. Away from family, she tried living as a street artist and found companionship in Dominique, who taught her the value of humanity – unconditional and endless love. Kencana regained her strenght to live in the foreign land and with Dominique as her close companion, she continued her life there until the time she was ready to return home. She then realized that homeland was where her true love was, when she became a successful entrepreneur and set up her own perfume company named Haruman Kencana.
Mail Mau Kawin (Mail wants to wed) by Dr Muhammad Ariff Ahmad atau MAS
It is a socio-cultural narrator of a youth, Mail, going through life in search of the value of friendship and life. This search brought him to Malaysia where he experienced the meaning of exploitations and desire. Ironically, his search materialized when he came back to Singapore where he finally learned the beauty of true love and success in life.
Short Stories
My Singapore by Hafiza Talib.
This short story highlights the emotional turmoil experienced by the main character, Aini, who was studying abroad at a University in Melbourne, Australia, with her fellow peers from Singapore. Although Aini and her fellow Singaporean peers were staying overseas and far away from home, their patriotism brimmed each time Singapore’s National Day drew nearer. Her yearning to return to her homeland materialized when she had an opportunity to join in the National Day Celebration with her fiancé, Abdul Hadi, as well as her brother in-law, Roslan, and his two children. While rejoicing in the glory of the celebration, bittersweet memories of her late elder sister (Roslan’s wife), who had passed away due to the SARS epidemic, and other depressing news such as war, retrenchment and the sluggish economy, haunted her again.
Old Singapore, New Singapore by Dehliez (Mohamed Ismail Sidek)
The main character of this short story is Uncle Raub, an old man who had left Singapore for 45 years, to pursue a career as a sailor and travel around the world. A friend who had suggested that he looked for another better-paying job than a trishaw rider, and his relationship crisis with his elder brother had influenced his decision then. Family bonding and blood ties had led him to return to his homeland in search of his family again. His encounter with a young trishaw rider had triggered nostalgic memories in the midst of the rapid and spectacular progress made by Singapore.
Novels
Short Stories by You Jin
A Dream Journey
Short Stories
“A Convenient Marriage” by Colin Lee
“The Last Village of Nee Soon” from The Last Village of Nee Soon by Ding Yun
Novels
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Elegant, subtle and moving, this is an incredible best-selling first novel from Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jhumpa Lahiri. Brought up as an Indian in suburban America, Gogol Ganguli soon finds himself itching to cast off his awkward name, just as he longs to leave behind the inherited values of his Bengali parents. And so, he sets off on his own path through life, a path strewn with conflicting loyalties, love and loss!
About the author:
Jhumpa Lahiri was born 1967 in London, England, and raised in Rhode Island. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she received a B.A. in English literature, and of Boston University, where she received an M.A. in English, M.A. in Creative Writing and M.A. in Comparative Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies.
Her debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was translated into twenty-nine languages and became a bestseller both in the United States and abroad. In addition to the Pulitzer, it received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
The Namesake is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel. She lives in New York with her husband and son.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. There they discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation and steal “subversive” novels of Honore de Balzac, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Gogol and read them to the daughter of the local tailor. While reading, both boys fall in love with the girl, and, through Balzac, discover “awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden”. The unsophisticated girl is deeply affected and inspired by the literature and seeks to escape from the limitations of her life. This is a book about the power of art to enlarge our imaginations and the power of literature to free the mind.
Trivia:
The novel was made into a film and was France’s nominee for Best Foreign Film at Golden Globe Award 2003.
About the author:
Born in China in 1954, Dai Sijie is a filmmaker who was himself “re-educated” between 1971 and 1974. He left China in 1984 for France, where he has lived and worked ever since. This, his first novel, was an overnight sensation when it appeared in France in 2000, becoming an immediate best-seller and winning five prizes. Rights to the novel have been sold in nineteen countries.
Short Stories
“Winterscape” from Diamond Dust: Stories By Anita Desai
Winterscape” details how the aunt and mother of an Indian married to a Canadian visit the couple and their newborn son and, as the unfamiliar snow falls, understand the great cultural differences that separate them.
“Lions in Winter” from Lions in Winter: Stories by Wena Poon
Wena Poon provides an insight to the quiet lives of displaced Singaporeans living abroad in the eyes of her protagonist Freddie.
About the Authors :
To all who voted, Many Thanks!
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, has been chosed as the other novel for this year’s Read! Singapore!
Background
NLB launched its first ever nation-wide reading initiative, READ! Singapore 05 on 24 May 2005. This initiative, adapted from the highly successful reading programmes around the world like the “One Book, One City” project in the US, Australia and others, was conceived in alignment with the Government’s strategic outcome of “Community”, READ! Singapore 05 was held over a 10-week period from 24 May to 6 August 2005, to encourage communal reading, flowed by facilitated discussions on the selected story.
To promote a culture of reading fiction in our country, it was aimed at encouraging more Singaporeans to read and share the joy of reading. To promote local creative literature, at least one book by a local author was included in each official language out of the 12 titles selected.
Objective
The key objective of the READ! Singapore initiative is to promote a culture of reading among Singaporeans as it aims to provide Singaporeans with an opportunity to rediscover the joys of reading, by creating a common topic of discussion and conversation amongst people. Hopefully, this nation-wide reading initiative will have an “infectious” quality and energy of its own, with people all over the island reading the same books and discussing them
READ! Singapore also aims to help develop Singaporeans’ critical thinking skills, creativity, expressions and imagination through the varied activities such as story dramatisation and book discussions.
The selected novels for READ@ Singapore 2007 are as follows:
Cast your vote on the book you think should be the next Read! Singapore title for 2008.
Total Voters: 108
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