Still, together with some nice readings of excerpts from their plays, the three also offered some quotes. But playwrights Verena Tay, Desmond Sim and Alfian Sa’at (with moderator and fellow playwright Robin Loon) didn’t really go into any of these, actually.
The write-up for the first one said something about how the playwrights talking about how they “got their break”, the “importance of mentorship”, “competition for attention among spoiled-for-choice audiences”. While my colleague went to check out AC Grayling’s lecture and the panel discussion on Singlish in Singapore literature, I popped by two panels on Singapore theatre and pop music. Or maybe it was just grouchy ol’ me after one long day at the fest proper.Ĭaught a couple of book launches (Yong Shu Hoong’s The Viewing Party poetry book, Cyril Wong’s first novel The Last Lesson Of Mrs De Souza, Amanda Lee Koe’s debut short fiction collection Ministry Of Moral Panic and - take a deep breath - The Epigram Books Collection Of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume One. Still, it was a tour that perhaps needed a bit of trimming-the idea of including Edwin Thumboo’s Ulysses By The Merlion near the end seemed to come out of nowhere after all those colonial and war writings. There were some interesting tidbits, though, like how the old MPH at Armenian Street was originally the Methodist Publishing House, and that the reason for having so many bookstores in the area was because there were 10 schools. Between the traffic noise and what seemed to be a valiant effort to cram a lot of elements into the tour, there were times when I just spaced out. It was a bit of a mixed bag, I’ve to say.
Writers like Joseph Conrad, Noel Coward, Isabella Bird, Roger Jenkins all “drop by” to say hello as well. There were snippets from Noel Barber’s Tanamera, Meira Chand’s A Different Sky and, of course, Paul Theroux’s Saint Jack. Writer Rosemary Lim fashioned a literary walk that took you back in time and into the works of writers who, at some point or other, had written about Singapore. Not fun when you’re lugging around books. The other was a two-hour literary tour from YMCA all the way to Raffles Place. One was a roving one-hour poetry reading done in response or in dialogue with the Singapore Biennale installations, which were roughly around the SWF area anyway. SINGAPORE - If you had been up for a bit of exercise during Day Two of the Singapore Writers Festival, there were two options.
0 kommentar(er)
