Global City Dilemmas and Anglophone Singapore Literature: Intersectional Politics and Cultural Negotiations in the 21st Century

This book looks at culturally significant, English-language texts produced in Singapore in the last 20 years by writers such as Balli Kaur Jaswal, Alfian Sa’at, Claire Tham, Amanda Lee Koe, Ng Yi-Sheng and Kevin Kwan. It provides an analysis sensitive to the writers' socio-political and cultural contexts, and shows how Singapore's Anglophone literature successfully disrupts the government’s narrative on transforming the island into a global city. By asking difficult questions, challenging hegemonic perspectives and exploring alternatives, the writers interrogate the country’s colonial history, its post-colonial Cold War development, and the normalization of totalizing narratives. Their texts also grapple with key aspects of contemporary Singapore society: its official multiracialism, forms of inequality, distribution of privilege, and gender and sexual politics. By connecting these texts to developments in postcolonial literary criticism, cosmopolitanism and globalization studies, thisbook sheds light on the ideological and cultural forces at work in Singapore society today. Acknowledgments Contents About the Author 1 Introduction: Positioning Singapore as a Global City Constructing the Global City: A Brief History of Economic, Urban, Cultural, and Educational Changes Of Ideological and Social Dilemmas, Tensions, and Faultlines Anglophone Singapore Literature in the Global City Cultural Formation Notes References 2 Housing and the City: Constructing Locality and Minority Subjectivities in Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Inheritance and Sugarbread Public Housing in Singapore: Its Socio-Political Significance and Symbolic Resonance The Singapore Literary Landscape of Public Housing: 1997–2013 Accommodating Minority Subjects: Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Inheritance and Sugarbread Inheritance: Minorities in Their Place Sugarbread: Growing Pains in Minority Childhood Conclusion Notes References 3 Unfinished Business: Attempting Decoloniality and Upending Race and Knowledge in Malay Sketches and Merdeka/FileRef="542008_1_En_3_Figa_HTML.png" Format="PNG" Color="BlackWhite" Type="Linedraw" Rendition="HTML" Resolution="300" Width="67" Height="40"/FileRef="542008_1_En_3_Figb_HTML.gif" Format="GIF" Color="BlackWhite" Type="Linedraw" Rendition="HTML" Resolution="120" Width="72" Height="14" A Decolonial Orientation for Singapore? Malay Sketches and Racial Ontology In Search of Part II: Merdeka/FileRef="542008_1_En_3_Figo_HTML.png" Format="PNG" Color="BlackWhite" Type="Linedraw" Rendition="HTML" Resolution="300" Width="67" Height="40"/FileRef="542008_1_En_3_Figp_HTML.png" Format="PNG" Color="BlackWhite" Type="Linedraw" Rendition="HTML" Resolution="300" Width="180" Height="36" Conclusion Notes References 4 Narrative Form and the Cosmopolitan Imaginary: Claire Tham’s The Inlet and Akshita Nanda’s Nimita’s Place Cosmopolitanization by the Singapore State Shaping the Cosmopolitan Imaginary: Literature and Narrative Form The Inlet and the Noir Detective Novel Nimita’s Place: The Partition Novel and the Multi-generational Family Saga Conclusion Notes References 5 Commodifying Singaporean Cosmopolitanism for the World: Crazy Rich Asians and Soy Sauce for Beginners “Writing Out”: Evolving Conditions of Literary Production for Anglophone Singapore Literature Cosmopolitanism as Spectacle: Crazy Rich Asians Rooted Cosmopolitanism: Soy Sauce for Beginners Conclusion Notes References 6 Tapping into Weird: Contemporary Singapore Short Fiction by Amanda Lee Koe and Ng Yi-Sheng In Search of Weirdness: Affect Theory and Literature Ministry of Moral Panic: The Irreducibility of Weirdness Lion City: Weird Extrapolations Conclusion Notes References 7 Epilogue Notes References Index