The Asian Bookshelf The Asian Bookshelf

The Asian Bookshelf talks to independent bookshop owner, Alex Chua of Book Bar.

Books mentioned
Yeoh Jo-Ann, Impractical Uses of Cake (Epigram Books 2019)
Fish Eats Lion (Math Paper Press 2012). See also Fish Eats Lion Redux (Epigram Books 2022)
Coast, Ed. Daren Shiau & Wei Fern (Math Paper Press 2011)
From the Belly of the Cat, Ed. Stephanie Ye (Math Paper Press 2013)

Other links
Book Bar
Book Bar on Instagram
Epigram Books
Does Singapore need bookstores? By Ruby T
Math Paper Press
Melissa De Silva
Amanda Lee Koe
Cyril Wong
Joshua Ip
National Library Board

The Asian Bookshelf discusses Elaine Chiew’s The Light Between Us (Neem Tree Press 2024).

Presenter Devika Misra, and writer, Jon Gresham, talk to Elaine about her debut novel, The Light Between Us,the power and artifice of images, photography in the early twentieth century compared to now, writing different time periods and a non-western centered novel, and her path to publication.

Books mentioned
Elaine Chiew, The Light Between Us (Neem Tree Press 2024)
“Life is a movie. Death is a photograph” from Susan Sontag, The Benefactor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1963, Penguin 2009). See also On Photography (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1977, Penguin Modern Classics 2008)
F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (Scribner 1925)
Sarah Churchwell, Careless People (Virago 2014)
Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians (Doubleday 2013)
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife (MacAdam/Cage 2003)

Other links
Cheshire Novel Prize
Bruce Hung at IMDb
Dai Xiangyu at IMDb
Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore at LaSalle College of the Arts
The Lake House (Warner Bros 2006)
On Speculative Fiction in Southeast Asia read this article Defying Classification: An Introduction to Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction by Victor Fernando R Ocampo in Lithub, April 2022

The Asian Bookshelf discusses Melissa De Silva’s Singapore Literature Prize Winning book ‘Others’ Is Not a Race: Being Eurasian in Singapore and Malaysia (Monsoon Books 2023).

Presenter Devika Misra, and writers, T.A. Morton and Jon Gresham, explore what they love about the book, the Creative Non Fiction form, identity and privilege, and how community status and roles change over time.

Books mentioned
Melissa de Silva, ‘Others’ Is Not a Race: Being Eurasian in Singapore and Malaysia (Monsoon Books 2023)
W Somerset Maugham, The Letter in the short story collection The Casuarina Tree (Heinemann 1926). See also Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors (Bloomsbury 2023)

For some other books by Eurasians in Singapore:
Rex Shelley, The Shrimp People (1991)
Kevin Martens Wong, Altered Straits (Epigram Books 2017)
The Eurasian Association Bookshop

Other links
My Debal Diaries - Tracing The History of Singapore’s Eurasians, Channel News Asia
Kodrah Kristang - The Initiative for the Revitalization of the Kristang Language in Singapore
National Archives of Singapore Joseph Schooling
The Eurasian Community in Singapore Infopedia
Intersectionality explained on Wikipedia
“Instead of asking what are people‘s roots, we ought to think about what are their routes, the different points by which they have come to be now; they are, in a sense, the sum of those differences. That, I think, is a different way of speaking than talking about multiple personalities or multiple identities as if they don‘t have any relation to one another or that they are purely intentional. These routes hold us in places, but what they don‘t do is hold us in the same place.” Cultural theorist Stuart Hall in The Journal of The International Institute, Vol 7, Issue 1, Fall 1999

Check out a sneak peek of our first four episodes, featuring authors Melissa De Silva and Elaine Chiew.

The Asian Bookshelf, home to words and voices from Asia today.

The Asian Bookshelf is a fortnightly podcast hosted by acclaimed writers T.A. Morton, Jon Gresham and Presenter Devika Misra.
It explores Southeast Asian fiction and nonfiction books. We discuss what works for readers and why; movie and streaming potential, emerging trends, and spotlights key industry figures.
This show is for the discerning reader keen to take a deeper dive into the region’s exciting stories and emerging voices.
Welcome to The Asian Bookshelf, home to words and voices from Asia today.