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A review by jon_gresham
Written Country: The History of Singapore through Literature by David Leo, Catherine Lim, Roger Jenkins, Ho Poh Fun, Rosaly Puthucheary, Hedwig Anuar, Stella Kon, Koh Beng Liang, Toh Hsien Min, Gilbert Koh, Said Zahari, Walter Woon, S Rajaratnam, Robert Yeo, Meira Chand, Christine Chia, Alistair Martyn Chew, Dave Chua, Alfian Sa’at, Simon Tay, Lim Thean Soo, Tan Tarn How, Lee Tzu Pheng, Michael Chiang, Haresh Sharma, Gopal Baratham, Muhammad Sharif Udin, Rex Shelley, Aileen Lau, Tania de Rozario, Philip Jeyaretnam, Heng Siok Tian, Edwin Thumboo, Koh Buck Song, Gwee Li Sui, Paul Tan, Marc Nair, Felix Cheong, Goh Sin Tub, Kim Cheng Boey, Tan Hwee Hwa
4.0
This wonderful anthology tells Singapore’s history through excerpts of prose, drama and poetry. A brief informative commentary on key events from the fall of Singapore to the death of Lee Kuan Yew accompanies the literary texts.
Gwee Li Sui’s introduction sets out the editorial principles guiding his approach to the selection and arrangement of the texts. The discussion raises fascinating issues on:
- the ’factually sound and the emotionally consistent’,
- the play between first hand and imagined experience,
- how history and literature relate to each other.
What is that quality literature possesses that makes history come alive and something more than a list of observed facts and descriptions?
In the very first text, Lim Thean Soo demonstrates this quality when he writes about the schoolboy who runs to the concrete roof of his family home to watch the shelling and counter shelling, and the bombs falling across Singapore on the 15th February 1942.
Gwee notes, inter alia, writers form characters that possess ’some quality of having lived through time’ and possessing deeper forms of knowledge by ‘allowing information to be thought back to us - accordingly rethought, made meaningful.’
Gwee writes ‘[a]s ... texts enter specific moments, they effectively give back to events their emotions and, in this way, generate reflections and commentaries from within.’
The texts that especially achieved this for me were Lim Thean Soo's The Siege on the fall of Singapore, Meira Chand's An Assortment of Knives on the Maria Hertogh Riots, A Sudden Madness by Dave Chua on the Pulau Senang mutiny, Confrontasi by Rex Shelley on the MacDonald House bombing, Siong wei by Koh Buck Song and Tan Hwee Hwa on the closure of Bugis Street, and People say this building suay by Haresh Sharma on the Hotel New World collapse.
Photographs from the Kinokuniya launch are here.
Gwee Li Sui’s introduction sets out the editorial principles guiding his approach to the selection and arrangement of the texts. The discussion raises fascinating issues on:
- the ’factually sound and the emotionally consistent’,
- the play between first hand and imagined experience,
- how history and literature relate to each other.
What is that quality literature possesses that makes history come alive and something more than a list of observed facts and descriptions?
In the very first text, Lim Thean Soo demonstrates this quality when he writes about the schoolboy who runs to the concrete roof of his family home to watch the shelling and counter shelling, and the bombs falling across Singapore on the 15th February 1942.
Gwee notes, inter alia, writers form characters that possess ’some quality of having lived through time’ and possessing deeper forms of knowledge by ‘allowing information to be thought back to us - accordingly rethought, made meaningful.’
Gwee writes ‘[a]s ... texts enter specific moments, they effectively give back to events their emotions and, in this way, generate reflections and commentaries from within.’
The texts that especially achieved this for me were Lim Thean Soo's The Siege on the fall of Singapore, Meira Chand's An Assortment of Knives on the Maria Hertogh Riots, A Sudden Madness by Dave Chua on the Pulau Senang mutiny, Confrontasi by Rex Shelley on the MacDonald House bombing, Siong wei by Koh Buck Song and Tan Hwee Hwa on the closure of Bugis Street, and People say this building suay by Haresh Sharma on the Hotel New World collapse.
Photographs from the Kinokuniya launch are here.