An Independence Season Reading List
This August and September, several Southeast Asian nations mark their independence within weeks of each other — Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. We're using that stretch to spotlight books that speak, directly or obliquely, to what independence and its long aftermath have looked like across the region.
Code: SEA20
Discount: 20% off storewide (!)
Runs: 7 August – 2 September 2026 (Singapore National Day through Vietnam's National Day)
Reading Recommendations
Singapore — National Day, 9 August
The Missing Anthology tells stories that play small but mighty parts in understanding Singapore from its margins rather than its centre — all curated and edited by Project X's Vanessa Ho, Raksha Mahtani, and nor.
If you’re looking for a chapter of Singapore’s civic history, you can now hold the story of Saga — Singapore's award-winning podcast on the AWARE Saga written by Kelly Leow and Jasmine Ng — in your hands. All 12 episodes have been transcribed and bound in The Saga Podcast Transcripts, with a foreword by Prof Tommy Koh and an intro by Bharati Jagdish. Net proceeds from this title are donated to AWARE.
Undertow (Issue 1), features pieces by writers who live/have lived in Singapore, including Loy Sye Yuet, Linda Collins and Shradha Biyani. Part of the inaugural zine’s set of essays focuses on family and death, on how self and belonging shift through physical departure, and on what it costs to love a person, place, memory, culture or language.
Indonesia — Independence Day, 17 August
The Story Game by Shze-Hui Tjoa, a Singaporean-Indonesian writer, threads Bali and its colonial legacies through this memoir — a fitting anchor for Indonesia's date, and a reminder that "independence" reading doesn't have to mean straight political history.
Malaysia — Merdeka Day, 31 August
Malayland by Dina Zaman is a clear-eyed look at contemporary Malaysian identity, while Ooi Kee Beng’s Signals in the Noise presents the currents beneath Southeast Asian politics and identity today — paired here as a wider-lens companion to Malayland's close-up view.
Vietnam — National Day, 2 September
Undertow (Issue 1), features "Yesterday, and yesterday, and yesterday" by Miên Túc — a personal essay tracing one family's memory of a divided Vietnam. In it, Miên Túc writes about his grandfather who served on the losing side of the Vietnam War, and his search through present-day Ho Chi Minh City for what remains of the country his grandfather knew.
Philippines and across the region
The Philippines’ independence day falls on 12 June, but the works we’ve published by Filipino writers are still highly recommended for this independence season of reading.
Undertow (Issue 1) features Lawrence Ypil’s “Untold Stories” — a beautiful, meditative piece about everyday living, while Lio Mangubat’s Silk, Silver, Spices, Slavesfeatures 13 essays about a history of the trade networks and colonial extraction that shaped the region long before independence movements grew in momentum.
