現有書籍

This New Edition of This Is What Inequality Looks Like by Teo You Yenn features a new Afterword by the author, and a Foreword by Kwok Kian Woon, Professor of Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

What is poverty? What is inequality? How are they connected? How are they reproduced? How might they be overcome? Why should we try?

The way we frame our questions shapes the way we see solutions. This book does what appears to be a no-brainer task, but one that is missing and important: it asks readers to pose questions in different ways, to shift the vantage point from which they view ‘common sense,’ and in so doing, to see themselves as part of problems and potential solutions. This is a book about how seeing poverty entails confronting inequality. It is about how acknowledging poverty and inequality leads to uncomfortable revelations about our society and ourselves. And it is about how once we see, we cannot, must not, unsee.

Can a life weave along through the same notes and yet come to play forth different sounds?

The Sound of SCH (pronounced S-C-H) is the true story of a journey with mental illness, beautifully told by Danielle Lim from a time when she grew up witnessing her uncle's untold struggle with a crippling mental and social disease, and her mother's difficult role as caregiver. The story takes place between 1961 and 1994, backdropped by a fast-globalising Singapore where stigmatisation of persons afflicted with mental illness nevertheless remains deep-seated. Unflinchingly raw and honest in its portrayal of living with schizophrenia, The Sound of Sch is a moving account of human resiliency and sacrifice in the face of brokenness.

If you’ve ever wondered why people keep talking about Palestine, or the point of keeping up with a long-drawn conflict in the Middle East and what difference you could possibly make, this book is for you. Political analyst and podcaster Walid Jumblatt Abdullah takes on questions that Singaporeans have often raised about Palestine, laying out answers that clarify and inform. 

Walid examines myths (“Could Gaza Have Been Singapore?”) and sheds light on the double standards of Western powers, to whom human rights seem to matter, except for where Palestine is concerned. Explaining how the Palestinians have been systematically dehumanised for decades, the book highlights how they continue to exist nevertheless, their very existence an act of resistance. 

Why Palestine? is an illuminating starting point for newcomers to the issue, and a passionate primer that seasoned activists will welcome for capturing the heart and hope of a long-disenfranchised people and those who support them.

A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters—one in New York, one in Singapore—who are bound by an ancient secret.

Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China.

A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her—but she soon begins to worry that Emerald’s irrepressible behaviour will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.

Razor-sharp, hilarious, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake, a reimagining of The Legend of the White Snake, is a novel about being seen for who you are—and, ultimately, how to live free.

“Amanda Lee Koe’s tale of serpentine sisterhood will wend its way into your heart. Drawing equally from folklore and current events, this fearless novel entertains and delights. Beneath its beguiling surface, Sister Snake explores fundamental questions: Are our destinies determined by our bodies? What forms can family take? And what, in the end, does it mean to be human?”
—Rajesh Parameswaran, author of I Am An Executioner

About the Author

Dina Zaman is a Kuala Lumpur-based writer and researcher. She is the co-founder of IMAN Research, a think tank focusing on socio-political and security matters, and a founding member of the Southeast Asian Women Peacebuilders. She has written extensively for the Malaysian media and is a contributor to The Jakarta Post. Her latest passion projects revolve around Terengganu Royal History. Dina is the author of three non-fiction titles – I am Muslim (Silverfish Publishing), Holy Men, Holy Women (SIRD) and Malayland(Ethos/Faction) – and King of the Sea (Clarity Publishing) her collection of short stories.

 “I have had nothing bad happen to me except my own doing. I have let this cowardice envelop me, and I can’t shake it off. I will commit the worst thing you can ever do to someone who loves you: killing yourself. The scary thing is, I’m okay with that.” —Victoria McLeod, Singapore, March 30, 2014

Loss Adjustment is a mother’s recount of her 17-year-old daughter’s suicide.

In the wake of Victoria McLeod’s passing, she left behind a remarkable journal in her laptop of the final four months of her life. Linda Collins, her mother, has woven these into her memoir, which is at once cohesive, yet fragmented, reflecting a survivor's state of mind after devastating loss.

Loss Adjustment involves the endless whys, the journey of Linda Collins and her husband in honouring Victoria, and the impossible question of what drove their daughter to this irretrievable act. A stunningly intimate portrait of loss and grief, Loss Adjustment is a breaking of silence—a book whose face society cannot turn away from.