A comprehensive historical anthology of English-language literary works from Singapore. It attempts to place the texts that have imagined the territory and the people who are now recognizably Singaporean in a historical narrative, to be read, studied, critiqued and treasured.

A comprehensive historical anthology of English-language literary works from Singapore. It attempts to place the texts that have imagined the territory and the people who are now recognizably Singaporean in a historical narrative, to be read, studied, critiqued and treasured.

Classical-style poetry in modern China and other Sinitic-speaking localities is attracting greater attention with the recent upsurge in academic revision of modern Chinese literary history. Using the concept of cultural transplantation, this monograph attempts to illustrate the uniqueness, compatibility, and adaptability of classical Chinese poetry in colonial Singapore as well as its sustained connections with literary tradition and homeland. It demonstrates how the reading of classical Chinese poetry can better our understanding of Singapore’s political, social, and cultural history, deepen knowledge of the transregional relationship between China and Nanyang, and fine-tune, redress, and enrich our perception of Singapore Chinese literature, Sinophone literature, the Chinese diaspora, and global Chinese identity.

This book provides a theoretical and practical framework for understanding the writing strategies used by Singapore primary school students and strategy-based writing instruction conducted in Singapore primary schools. It offers a detailed account of how research into primary students’ writing strategies was investigated in the Singapore context. A unique feature of the book is its two-phase design. In Phase One, primary school students’ writing strategies were found to be positively correlated with their English proficiency. In Phase Two, useful writing strategies were systematically taught to primary school students through strategy-based writing instruction. The book’s description of how to teach writing strategies in a series of nine lessons from a teacher’s perspective is particularly useful. The implications of this study are relevant for language teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.

The maestro of political plays is back and his latest offering in a decade, Fear of Writing, is a groundbreaking commentary with its finger on the political pulse of Singapore today. In Fear of Writing, a playwright struggles with writer’s block, a director and producer bemoan their failure to get a government license to stage their play, and a father writes to his daughter overseas. Seemingly disparate elements are woven together, while the line between art, performance and reality begin to blur dramatically as the play reaches its chilling conclusion. Fear of Writing is a play that will haunt you while compelling you to decide where you stand on the issues of control and censorship. Written by Tan Tarn How, Fear of Writing was first staged by Theatreworks in 2011 to critical acclaim.

Postcolonial literature about the South Seas, or Nanyang, examines the history of Chinese migration, localization, and interethnic exchange in Southeast Asia, where Sinophone settler cultures evolved independently by adapting to their "New World" and mingling with native cultures. Writing the South Seas explains why Nanyang encounters, neglected by most literary histories, should be considered crucial to the national literatures of China and Southeast Asia.