An elderly widow fantasizes about celebritydom after the death of her husband. An unexpected friendship blossoms between a young boy and his neighbour. A domestic helper hides a dark secret in her employer’s home. A troubled man opens his door to a childhood friend. Set in Singapore, this collection explores the complexities of existence and alienation through diverse narratives, revealing how our deepest pains, while uniquely our own, also reflect a shared human experience of vulnerability, yearning and the perpetual search for meaning in our lives.
Catagory: Fiction
Karunya
‘My dear child,
If your father has left an indentation on my ring finger,
And you stretch marks on my stomach,
He has likewise left a permanent engraving.’
The story of Lalana, a transgender man who gave birth to a daughter.
Going back in time to her daughter’s first birthday, at the dining table where her husband and daughter blow out the birthday candle together, she finds out that she is a man in the body of a woman; she finds out that she is, in truth, a man.
And once he admits to his husband that he has changed, his answer is: he can’t embrace what Lal is, and he needs time to come to terms with it.
Then, during that time of change, Lal meets a man.
He has a house on Song Wat road, and that house becomes Lalana’s refuge. From the day they met by chance onwards, Lal has visited him again time after time, reason after reason, for carnal desires and bodily passions that he has for him, and for the compassion that he shows Lal—shows Lal’s male self.
Really Rich, Really Robin: Magical Mayhem
Magic is in the air . . .
When Robin stumbles upon a wooden magic wand in the depths of the forest, his world transforms in the blink of an eye.
With a simple flick, Robin can conjure wonders beyond his wildest dreams. From turning his best friend Charlie into a furious chicken to creating the most enormous ice-cream ever seen, the possibilities are endless.
But lurking in the shadows are two sinister villains, watching Robin’s every move and scheming to steal his powerful wand for themselves.
Unaware of the impending danger, Robin and his friends are soon swept into a whirlwind of magical chaos.
Get ready for a spellbinding adventure filled with friendship, bravery, and a dash of mayhem that could change the course of history forever!
Sati
“A woman is a cursed creature.”
Rina has heard this all her life — spoken by her beloved mother, a soft messenger for a sharp message. Words that echoed in the marrow of every choice Rina made. It became the kind of curse that hid in plain sight.
In a house weighted by tradition, Rina, a devoted wife and mother, tends to a sister with a child’s mind while raising her two teenage children straining against their inherited roles. It is when her husband Salim names their son Kabir the heir, and tells their daughter Noori that her place is elsewhere that Rina begins to understand the workings of this curse.
Rina watches the same story tighten around the next generation — and recognises it for what it is: a legacy of shrinking.
But there is only so much you can shrink before you cease to exist. And so, in whispered rebellions and quiet refusals, in dreams that refuse to be dismissed, Rina, Kabir, and Noori begin to tug at the threads holding their world in place.
Finding Darla
Darla Roland Fernandez is an aspiring Sabahan actress who yearns for her big break. When a promising role brings her across the South China Sea, she quickly proves her worth as an actress, and everyone, especially her co-star, Donny Chiew, takes notice.
Nandhini Ganesan, a writer retrenched during the Covid-19 pandemic, struggles to make ends meet in the city of Kuala Lumpur. Hiding her current unemployment status from her family, she leads an exhausting double life until she discovers an old, abandoned car and her deceased grandmother begins appearing in her dreams, leaving a cryptic message for her to decipher.
With the help of a reformed gangster, an elderly hoarder, and an old friend, Nandhini begins to piece together the puzzle that her grandmother has left her. As one clue leads to another, Nandhini soon finds the thread that ties her to Darla. But is it too late? Can she help Darla protect what matters most?
This story of love, loss, and grief reminds us that everyone deserves to be remembered.
Dreamt for Years in the Shadow of the Sun
Come along for a descent into a Manila in the claws of night and sinister folklore.
A crime thriller set in 1990s Metro Manila of the dark fantastic, Lenix and Elena are young misfits recruited to fight in the secret war against the cartel known as The Lords of Night, the organization ruling the trade of the mysterious, highly addictive drug Fantoma.
On the team of the anarcho-shaman Conrad White Crow, they battle otherworldly creatures and monsters of folklore that control fantoma’s manufacture and traffic. As their fates intertwine, Lenix and Elena discover how love can bloom in the shadow of ancient war and the high cost they must pay for the power to win against such formidable enemies.
To Be Sacred
“Without even a glimpse at his girl’s keeper of several years, he turned away and opened the door of the RV. A cold wind from the dark hit his face. Welcome to the new world, he smiled. Carefully stepping down, he walked toward the hospital. The moon followed him, showing the way. Was the moon confused that it might be her lost baby?
She will be born again.”
Tragedy sets a man on a desperate mission that entwines the fates of five families with his own. As that mission careens toward disaster, the connected families negotiate pain, guilt, and desperation.
To Be Sacred is a novel that is part psychological investigation into loss and obsession, and part social commentary. Set in early 21st century South Korea, the book explores the ethical dilemmas that modern technologies and consumerism bring to ordinary families.
Penguin Select Black Classics: Metamorphosis
A story of transformation, shame, and the limits of love
“One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.”
Thus begins one of the strangest and most unforgettable stories ever written. The Metamorphosis follows a dutiful salesman who wakes to find his body grotesquely altered—and his family’s love slowly eroding.
In precise, dreamlike prose, Kafka dissects the loneliness of modern life, the cruelty of conformity, and the human need for dignity even in degradation.
A dark fable and a tender tragedy, The Metamorphosis asks: when everything familiar turns against us, what remains of the self?
Penguin Select Black Classics: Crime and Punishment
A tale of sin, conscience, and redemption
“Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.”
Amid the shadowed alleys of St. Petersburg, a young student, impoverished and fevered with ideas, conceives of a dreadful act. He persuades himself that greatness may be purchased at the cost of blood, that a crime committed in the name of necessity is no crime at all. Yet the heart cannot flee the burden of guilt.
Crime and Punishment tells the story of fear, conscience and soul’s slow search for redemption. It is a study of the mind in torment, of choices that weigh us down, and of the fine line between right and wrong.
Dostoevsky’s masterwork is a haunting reflection on human nature, the cost of transgression, and the hope that even the darkest hearts may find light.
Penguin Select Classics: Peter Pan (Original, Unabridged Classic)
The one thing a child craves is to magically grow older, but here is a child who wished to never age and makes us want to be children forever too. Seeped in nostalgia for simpler times, childhood friendships, innocence and honest conversations, Peter Pan is one of the most heartfelt fairy tales. Peter Pan, the mischievous boy who never wanted to grow up, escapes to the magical world of Neverland. One night, while flying high, he hears sweet bedtimes stories from the Darling’s House. He perches at the window to listen but loses his shadow on his way out. On his way back to get it, he befriends Wendy. Together, they whisk off to Neverland and start a never-ending adventure of troubles and daring rescues. But when the times comes, will Peter be able to let Wendy go? This is a story of deep friendship and the innate childlike desires in everyone.