Singa-Pura-Pura: Malay Speculative Fiction from Singapore

From a future of electronic doas and AI psychotherapists, sense-activated communion with forests and a portal to realms undersea, to a reimagined origin and afterlife—editor and translator Nazry Bahrawi brings together an exciting selection of never-before translated and new Malay spec-fic stories by established and emerging writers from Singapore. 


Especially in an anglophone-dominated genre, very little of Malay speculative fiction from Singapore is known to readers here and beyond. Yet contemporary Bahasa literature here is steeped in spec-fic writing that can account as a literary movement (aliran)—and unmistakably draws from the minority Malay experience in a city obsessed with progress.

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Singa-Pura-Pura: Malay Speculative Fiction from Singapore

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Reviews

"This richly varied collection illuminates the deep roots of Malay speculative fiction as well as the field's bright futures." —Emily Mercer, Wasafiri magazine

"A fascinatingly psychedelic blend of Singaporean/Southeast Asian visions: mythic, horrific, utopian, dystopian, technocratic, transcendental. These are stories of marginality, struggle and survival in a city-state obsessed with a future that may not include us all." —Ng Yi-Sheng, author of Lion City (Co-winner of Singapore Literature Prize 2020)


“A delightful collection of stories showing off the depth and breadth of imagination in Singapore. People deal with rebellious shadows and AI alike in these thirteen tales that present visions of a speculative past, present and future.” —Neon Yang, author of The Tensorate Series (Hugo, Nebula and Lammy Award Finalis

"This intriguing collection of stories – some translated from Bahasa Malay, others written in English – reveal new facets of speculative fiction, rooted in Malay mythology and drawing on minority Malay experience in Singapore. We find ourselves in locations ranging from portals in the sea to abandoned housing projects, in stories peopled by shadows and doubles, shapeshifters, angels and ghosts, robots and aliens. These stories full of disruptive magic engage with issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence, social relations and queer identity. They question our obsession with technology and the material world while exploring interspecies communication and alternative societies." —Kate Griffin, National Centre for Writing

EDITORS

Nazry Bahrawi

CONTRIBUTORS

Bani Haykal, Diana Rahim, Farihan Baron, Hassan Hasaa’Ree Ali, Ila, Maisarah Abu Samah, Nazry Bahrawi, nor, Noridah Kamari, Nuraliah Norasid, Pasidah Rahmat, Tuty Alawiyah Isnin