Polite Fiction
Colin Cheong
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2011
ISBN: 9789814351546

From the award-winning author of The Stolen Child, Tangerine and The Man in the Cupboard comes a new novel of gratuitous sex, casual violence and twisted motivational messages.

What's a girl to do? Smart, athletic and obscenely wealthy, Yuki Moh is the embodiment of girl power and looks like she's got it all. She also has an insanely possessive and protective father who wants to keep her in the family money-laundering business. Luckily for Yuki, she's got friends who owe her favours. But with her lover's mother dying from cancer and her best friend gang-raped, she's got more on her mind than freedom.

Polite Fiction is about the rude reality behind the stories we tell about ourselves. Colin Cheong's latest work weaves a central story through the lives and issues of a cast of characters hiding behind their own polite fictions. Each chapter sends sanitized fairy tales back to the realm of shadows where they lie in wait - to remind us of just how much we lie.

Liu Kang: Colourful Modernist
Yeo Wei Wei (ed.)
Singapore: The National Art Gallery, 2011
ISBN: 9789810886745

This monograph positions Liu Kang, one of Singapore’s first generation artists, as observer, commentator, and visionary of modernity in Singapore art history. The contexts in which his works were created consist of a colourful map of diverse cultures, places, influences, from China, Europe and Southeast Asia.

The cross-cultural richness in Liu Kang’s way of seeing and art making are explored in four essays by curators and art researchers. These essays present fresh insights about the artist’s engagement with European and Chinese modernisms in a Singaporean context.

The book also contains close to 200 colour illustrations and archival photographs as well as an index and a glossary.

In Memory of Madam Kwa Geok Choo, 1920-2010
Morgan Chua
Singapore: Sang Kancil Publications, 2011
ISBN: 9789810879723

Madam Kwa Geok Choo was great in many ways - as a legal luminary, as a mother of an illustrious family, and more than that, for her stoic presence next to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew during times of turbulence and tension in the many years of his political struggle. She was always by his side, giving him her full support in his chosen path in politics, sharing his preoccupation with the good of Singapore before anything else. She was his companion, confidante and counsel.

As she walked that long road with Mr. Lee, she made quiet but important contributions to Singapore, many of which younger Singaporeans only came to know about, after she passed away in October 2010.

This publication of sketches by Morgan Chua presents the milestones in Madam Kwa's life in a light-hearted manner. I hope that it would stir interest among younger Singaporeans to get to know this remarkable lady better.
-Foreword by Mr. S.R. Nathan

A Gentle Journey: A Personal Poetry Collection
Tan Jing Quee; Tan May Yun (compiler and editor)
Singapore: May Publishing, 2011
ISBN: 9789810893521

A Gentle Journey is a private and thoughtful collection of poems by Singapore-born poet Tan Jing Quee (1939-2011). A lawyer and former political detainee with a strong interest in politics, history and literature, his poems tell a story of his gentle life and reflections at each turn.

Covering streetscapes from his early childhood in Singapore, to his detention under the ISA, London days as a Law student and subsequent travels far and wide, these poems offer glimpses into his deep insights and tender moments with his family.

The title of this book is adapted from his last poem written just six months before his demise, in which he vividly described his gentle departure from this world, with a refrain "I Shall Go Gently". It has served to provide a source of comfort and strength to his loved ones.