英文

Advocates and activists in Singapore contribute to policy discussions and positive change through a combination of deft manoeuvres and patient politics. Yet civil society is often unacknowledged, their skill and labour instead frequently misunderstood, even earning them the label of “troublemakers” or “enemies of the state.”

This collection of essays and interviews is a candid reflection on the intentions, beliefs and strategies behind the practice of advocacy across a spectrum of causes. The contributors come from varying backgrounds and include academics, artists, lawyers, journalists, non-profit and advocacy organisations, student and community organisers. They share practical insights into their aims and community-building work, and the tactics they employ to overcome obstacles, shedding light on how to navigate a city-state with shifting socio-political fault lines and out-of-bound markers.

With an introduction, “It is Time to Trim the Banyan Tree”, by Constance Singam, and a conclusion, “Their Struggle is Ours to Continue”, by Suraendher Kumarr.

Ethos Books has also partnered with the Community for Advocacy and Political Education (CAPE) to produce The CAPE Handbook to Advocacy in Singapore. Authored by CAPE and produced by Ethos Books, this concise guide dispels misconceptions and offers practical action steps, easing readers into strategies for effective advocacy and activism in the city-state.

Contributors: Alex Au, Alfian Sa’at, The Community for Advocacy and Political Education (CAPE), Cherian George, Corinna Lim, Disabled People’s Association, Irie Aman, Kenneth Paul Tan, Kirsten Han, Ng Kok Hoe, Pink Dot, Reetaza Chatterjee, Remy Choo, SG Climate Rally, Suraendher Kumarr, Thirunalan Sasitharan, Walid Jumblatt Bin Abdullah

“One of Singapore’s most visible poets, Pang grows with each book. In his poems we hear a voice unhurried, confident, and capable of carrying diverse humors, and read a rhetoric shaded to ironies, surprising us with glimpses of contemporary experience that affirm yet mock, celebrate and unsettle. His poetry adds a rich and complex presence to the critical mass of urban literature now fully emergent from Singapore. His poems, at once recognizably national and international in reach, offer a fresh edgy energy to this tradition.”

- Professor Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1992 and author of Joss and Gold

Shezlez the Self-Proclaimed is an absurdist story about a poor man’s ambition to organise his own political party in an unnamed country characterised by moral apathy, poverty and heartless bureaucracy. Upon his first speech, so rousing as to attract the attention of the Progressive Party, Shezlez finds himself embroiled in a corrupt scheme of deceit and backstabbing in the leadup to the upcoming mayoral elections. A Machiavellian tale of political ambition, Shezlez the Self-Proclaimed examines the fickleness of loyalty, and interrogates the perennial question of whether the pursuit of power, no matter how idealistic its genesis, can ever remain a noble quest.

Hailed as “the definitive Singaporean novel”, this new edition of Heartland is accompanied by a new preface by author Daren Shiau and a publisher’s foreword that contextualises the novel’s imprint on the Singapore literary landscape since its first publication in 1999.

An iconic work, Heartland explores the paradox of rootedness and rootlessness in fast-changing Singapore. Set in the early 1990s, the novel follows the years of Wing Seng as he leaves school and is conscripted into full-time National Service. As Wing tries to reconcile his past with his future amid transitions through different phases of life, he finds meaning in his intense attachment to his surrounding landscape. Yet, as relationships and the years slip by, Wing is forced to question his own certainties and the wisdom of the people he values.

Set in Singapore’s heartland at the turn of the century, Heartland’s capturing of the texture of everyday life provides the backdrop essential to the bildungsroman’s exploration of identity, belonging and connection in an increasingly urbanised Singapore.

Sequel to Josephine Chia’s 2014 Singapore Literature prize-winning book, Kampong Spirit - Gotong Royong: Life in Potong Pasir, 1955 to 1965.

Kampong life in Singapore did not end in 1965 with her independence.

In Josephine Chia’s new collection of non-fiction stories, the phasing out of attap-thatched villages, the largest mass movement in Singapore, is set against the backdrop of significant national events.

Weaving personal tribulations—her teenage angst—and the experiences of villagers from her kampong, Josephine skilfully parallels the hopes and challenges of a toddling nation going through the throes of industrialisation and rapid changes from 1966 to 1975.

These delightful, real-life stories, sprinkled with snippets of her Peranakan culture, reveal the joie-de-vivre of gotong royong or community spirit, despite impoverished conditions, in the last days of kampong life.

Disability is neither strange nor distant. Part autobiography, part reflections of social advocate Cassandra Chiu’s experiences as a person living with visual impairment, A Place For Us is the story of the first woman to be a guide dog handler in Singapore and the first Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in Southeast Asia who happens to be blind.

Cassandra’s story starts with her growing-up years in 1980s Singapore, chronicling how her life unfolds with the onset of Stargardt disease, which causes progressive vision loss. From pursuing an education, navigating motherhood, to building a career as a psychotherapist, Cassandra openly discusses the attitudes towards disability and her journey towards true independence with her guide dog Esme.

In inimitable frankness, A Place For Us offers an illuminating perspective of a person living with disability beyond the pity party of her life, and advocates for a more equal and sustainable future for people with disabilities.

Disability is all around us—among people we meet, the media, sports, our own family and friends. Undeniably, all of us have or will one day come to experience or encounter disability. But how can we reckon with the realities of those who live with disability, or its reality in our own lives? In a city-state slowly moving towards inclusion, how do those meant to be 'included' feel about such efforts? Not Without Us: perspectives on disability and inclusion in Singapore is a groundbreaking collection of essays that takes a creative and critical disability studies approach to centre disability, and rethink the ways in which we research, analyse, think and know about disability in our lives. Across multiple domains and perspectives, the writings in this volume consider what it means to live with disability in a purportedly inclusive and accessible Singapore.

(Book cover description: The central visual of the cover is a photo. This photo, taken by photographer Isabelle Lim, is of two performers in the centre of a spacious room, where the wall and floor are both decorated with brown and gold patterns. The foreground is lit by a bright yet warm light, which illuminates the side profiles of the two men against the blackness behind them. Closer to the camera is the rapper Wheelsmith. Clad in a mustard  yellow cap and blue denim jacket, he is riding his wheelchair toward the left of the picture. At a slight distance behind him, and in the midst of walking in the opposite direction, is fellow rapper ShiGGa Shay, sporting an orange, white, and blue puffer jacket and a bun of electric blue hair."

On the book cover, this photo is accompanied by the Book title "Not Without Us" in all-capitals, beige text against the black background on the top of the photo. The subtitle in small caps "perspectives on disability and inclusion in Singapore" is printed in the center-right of the book cover. In the black background of the photo are light blue lines in the shape of Wheelsmith's and Shigga Shay's silhouettes, layered and expanding towards the top of the book cover to amplify their poses in the photo. The editors' byline is at the bottom of the book cover in black text.)

“This is a pathbreaking book. Not Without Us weaves together a rich fabric of voices exploring the politics and poetics of disability in Singapore. Moving between lived reality, representation and struggles for social transformation, the collection excavates hidden or forgotten pasts, documents struggles and community formation in the present, and hints at possible futures. The essay collection challenges contemporary discourses of and scholarship on disability in Singapore by centring disabled subjectivities. In the process, it opens up new spaces of empathy, praxis and critique.” —Philip Holden, Independent Scholar and Counsellor 

"It warms my heart to see another book on disability through the Asian lens. Not just any book or author, but a plethora of contributors who are leaders in the Singaporean disability scene. The tapestry of all the essays inspires the imagination to how we can truly create a place that all of us can call home. Inclusion isn’t just keeping the token seat available, or inviting someone disabled to the party, but truly paving the way forward for all of us to celebrate each other as individuals in all our different shapes, sizes and colours. Thank you Not Without Us for so eloquently celebrating ‘Nothing about us, without us’!" —Cassandra Chiu, Psychotherapist; Social Advocate and Author of A Place For Us

"Not Without Us is a richly edited and profoundly written collection of essays about disability in Singapore. It is part of a new and fresh movement to provide local knowledges and global perspectives to a field that has been for too long grounded in the West, particularly the US and the UK. The book will be extremely valuable not only to readers in Singapore but also to those throughout the world who seek a broader perspective on significant issues in disability studies, arts, policy and activism." —Lennard J. Davis, Distinguished Professor, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois in Chicago

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

 “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.

In This Together: Singapore’s Covid-19 Story is a dramatic insider account of the first two years of the pandemic.

It is a story of suffering and resilience, of miscalculation and foresight, and of grumbling yet cooperation.

The book is written by journalists of The Straits Times who have been in the thick of covering the ongoing crisis.

More than 300 people were interviewed, including the President of Singapore, the Prime Minister, business owners and survivors of the disease.

Through their recollections, the book chronicles how the country came together to fight the virus, even as everyone has had to stay resolutely apart while doing so.