SINGAPORE – In the course of the year, The Straits Times’ arts team has reviewed, and interviewed the authors of, nearly 200 books, both local and international.
In the spirit of year-end reflection, we put some prompts to ourselves to revisit some of the greatest hits of 2023. Here is hoping you will discover your next favourite read.
Most creative premise
Ong Sor Fern (SF): Liu Cixin’s Of Ants And Dinosaurs. I confess to hating his much-celebrated The Three-Body Problem, but Of Ants And Dinosaurs, positing an alternate universe in which ants and dinosaurs evolve symbiotically into a technologically advanced society, turned out to be a funny, and fun, satirical read.
Clement Yong (CY): It is a toss-up between Tan Twan Eng’s The House Of Doors and Gourav Mohanty’s Sons Of Darkness. One is a sensuous – and sensual – re-creation of 1910 to 1911 Penang that brings together the unlikely pair of Somerset Maugham and Sun Yat Sen, through the eyes of a colonial wife, no less. The other, a rip-roaring, morally muddy reimagination of the Mahabharata that has deity Krishna as a Senator in possession of an ancient weapon – deserving plaudits for being India’s belated first grimdark fantasy.
Charmaine Lim (CL): The semi-autobiographical account of the struggles of modern dating in the graphic novel How To Date A Dozen Men by Samara Gan. It is incredibly brave of her to share her dating journey and personal struggles with self-perception. That kind of vulnerability is rare and refreshing. At times, the artwork lends itself to chibi-esque expressions – chibi is a caricature style common in anime and manga – and makes the whole adventure more relatable for readers who are also navigating the dating scene.
Shawn Hoo (SH): What can writers from two nations – split so far down the phylogenetic tree of history today – say to each other 60 years after a testy political union? The Second Link: An Anthology Of Malaysian & Singaporean Writing – edited by a bilateral team consisting of Daryl Lim Wei Jie, Hamid Roslan, Melizarani T. Selva and William Tham – conducts a referendum of ideas through essays, fables, radio plays, poems and speculative fiction. It holds out the promise of love and literature beyond the nation-state.
Olivia Ho (OH): Leech by Hiron Ennes, set in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by the Institute, a hive mind that possesses thousands of hosts to make them the perfect doctors. But they have competition in the wintry north: a new, deadly parasite. An astonishing blend of Gothic chills and science-fiction body horror.
One that surprised me
SF: Cat Bohannon’s Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years Of Human Evolution. I did not expect to be so entertained by Bohannon’s epic, ambitious and deeply researched book about the role of the female body in the story of human evolution. A great demonstration of how excellent pop science writing, girded by strong research and delivered in layman’s terms, can convey powerfully important scientific information in an accessible fashion.
CY: Also Cat Bohannon’s Eve, which still contains the most persuasive argument I have ever come across as to why the female body can be considered the stronger and, by far, more resilient of the sexes. But I also put forward Jessica George’s semi-autobiographical debut Maame. Despite its souffle writing, this coming-of-age tale of a girl of Ghanaian descent, straining under the weight of family responsibilities in London, won me over with its laugh-out-loud humour and precocious wisdom.
CL: Homecoming by Kate Morton manages to tell a richly compelling mystery spanning three generations, 600 pages and a series of clever twists. To see the intricacies of character relationships and watch as a major family tragedy gets unpacked after decades of secrets feels vividly like being part of the story itself. I still find myself thinking about the characters almost a year later.
SH: Tse Hao Guang’s sophomore collection The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association is a radical break from his debut book, Deeds Of Light, and a beacon of poetic reinvention. I have returned to his gallery of calligraphic texts repeatedly across the year and the book has found an assured place in my mind’s permanent exhibition of Singapore verse.
OH: Our Share Of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell, a horror epic about a demon cult in Argentina. I was put off at first by this book’s heft and slow start, but after I began to appreciate its architecture – Gothic in its foundation but with each new level excavating a different horror sub-genre – I was utterly mesmerised.
Most touching relationship
SF: In Ann Patchett’s wise, gentle and all-embracing Tom Lake, Lara tells her three daughters about a short-lived romance as a young woman in summer stock theatre in understated shades of Chekhov (there is even a cherry orchard). The result is a moving portrait of young romance versus mature love, as well as passion in all its aspects, from sexual to cerebral.
CY: I am a massive fan of Bret Easton Ellis and his The Shards once more moved me with its portrayal of the oppressively numb relations between its young characters. These privileged kings and queens of their high school, having seen too much too soon, hide their fears and desires in an edifice of practised coolness, capable only of a mild “wow” – until it all comes apart in the face of mysterious phone calls, mutilated animals and bloody murder.
CL: The relationship between Anh and her brothers in Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin, particularly as she becomes their sole parental figure and makes her own difficult sacrifices for their happiness. Being a refugee is difficult enough, but raising oneself and one’s siblings is no easy job for a teenage girl. Anh is a reminder that love comes in different forms and that parenthood is not always relegated to having birthed a child.
SH: Set in colonial Trinidad, Hungry Ghosts by novelist Kevin Jared Hosein weaves an intricate tapestry of relationships around its tragic protagonist, farmhand Hansraj Saroop, after his wealthy master Dalton Changoor disappears. It is a slow-burn, operatic tale of one man’s over-ambition and the resultant trauma that seeps sideways and gets passed down the generations. One of the best prose stylists I have discovered in 2023.
OH: The friendship between the three Filipina domestic workers who helm Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Singapore-set murder mystery Now You See Us. Cora, Angel and Donita are from different generations, each with her own emotional baggage, but the way they band together to help a fellow Filipina clear her name will warm any reader’s heart.
One book I will recommend to everyone
SF: Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, a gloriously Technicolor, wittily drawn, emotionally savvy retelling of the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone.
CY: The Covenant Of Water by Abraham Verghese, following a village family’s multigenerational battle against a peculiar fear of water and the adventures of unfortunate Scottish doctor Digby Kilgour. This tapestried, hopeful epic set in 20th-century India melds explorations of caste, racial relations and post-independence politics with the magic of medicine – desperate moments of skill and prayer that Verghese as a physician is particularly attuned to. The death of beloved matriarch big Ammachi still stays in my mind.
CL: Claiming Susan Chin by Tham Cheng-E. The two perspectives were so well balanced and did a wonderful job of undoing negative stereotypes about persons with Down syndrome. Susan’s chapters showed how much she truly understood and I believe readers will learn to see the disability in a different light after reading this book. I have recommended it so much that you can find my handwritten recommendation for it on the shelves at indie bookstore Book Bar.
SH: Catskull by Myle Yan Tay. Failed by an apathetic system, a Singaporean teenager takes justice into his own hands. Tay has crafted a typographic novel, achieving the lyrical passion of a graphic novel without a single image in the book. Along with Prasanthi Ram’s Nine Yard Sarees, this is the best debut book of fiction I have read all year.
OH: The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng, an epic of nation-building, possibly the next great Singapore novel, almost certainly the most gripping tale of land reclamation you will ever read. Through the eyes of Ah Boon, a kampung boy with a connection to mysterious islands in the sea, Heng charts the sweep of Singapore’s history from 1941 to 1963.
