Shaping How Southeast Asia is Written About
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With a Foreword by Tommy Koh and Introduction by Bharati Jagdish
About the Book
March 2009. When 100 strangers arrived at a run-of-the-mill meeting for Singapore gender-equality group AWARE, long-time members sensed that something was wrong. Who were the mysterious women wresting control of this respected volunteer organisation? And what disturbing secrets united them? What happened next became the stuff of national legend: starting with an astonishing coup and culminating in an extraordinary demonstration of equality and justice.
First released in 2020 as an award-winning long-form narrative podcast—the first ever in Singapore—Saga captured the social and political reverberations, and electrifying plot twists, that defined this chapter in Singapore civil society history. Now The Saga Podcast Transcripts: Fury, Faith and the Fight for Justice in the AWARE Saga brings together in print the voices of those who lived it—the activists, observers and members of the public who found themselves swept into the storm.
This is more than a record of events. It is an intimately human story of power and resistance, courage and community—and a reminder of how fragile, and how vital, civic life can be.
About the Authors
Kelly Leow and Jasmine Ng are the co-writers and co-producers of the podcast Saga (2020-21).
About AWARE
The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) is Singapore’s leading women’s rights and gender equality organisation. Since its formation in 1985, AWARE has carried out research on numerous issues affecting women, including workplace sexual harassment, poverty of older women and Singapore’s compliance with UN anti-gender discrimination standards. Over the years, AWARE has effectively advocated against laws, public policies and mindsets that discriminate against women. AWARE also provides case management, counselling, legal advice, befriending and other assistance to women in need.
Readers in North America can purchase the US and Canada edition of The Story Game (published by Tin House) here.
About the Book
In the humid dark of a eucalyptus-scented room, a woman named Hui lies on a mattress telling stories about herself to her listener, a little girl. She talks about her identity as the child of an immigrant, her feelings about being in a mixed-race marriage, her opinions on mental health. But as her stories progress, it becomes clear a volatile secret lurks beneath their surface. There are events in Hui’s past that have great significance for the person she’s become, but that have gone missing from her memory. What is it, exactly, that is haunting Hui? Who is the little girl she talks to? And who is Hui herself?
As the conversation continues, what unfolds is a breathtaking, unexpected journey through layers of story toward truth and recovered identity; a memoir that reenacts, in tautly novelistic fashion, the process of healing that author Shze-Hui Tjoa moved through to recover memories lost to complex PTSD and, eventually, reconstruct her sense of self. Stunning in its originality and intimacy, The Story Game is a piercing tribute to selfhood and sisterhood, a genre-shattering testament to the power of imagination, and a one-of-a-kind work of art.
About the Author
Shze-Hui Tjoa is a Singaporean writer who lives in Edinburgh, UK. Her debut, The Story Game, was named a best nonfiction book of 2024 by Electric Literature and Paste Magazine when it was first published in the US and Canada. Shze-Hui is an editor at Guernica and Adi Magazine. Her writing has received support from arts organisations in the US, Portugal, Singapore, and Morocco. You can read her author interviews and find out more about her creative philosophy via her website, www.tjoashzehui.com.
About the Book
Sex workers in Singapore — and most places around the world — tend to be dehumanised, glamourised or sensationalised by the public and media alike. Rarely do mainstream narratives centre sex workers’ voices and agency. The Missing Anthology presents fifteen bold new voices from sex workers, whose writings resist society’s simplistic assumptions about sex work. In these works, authors recount their lived experiences, share their struggles and triumphs, and imagine different futures for the sex industry.
Born from an open call and writing workshops organised by Project X — the only non-profit organisation in Singapore that provides social, emotional, and health services to people in the sex industry — these pieces daringly experiment with form, genre, and perspective. In these pages, you’ll find two “chickens” discussing their dreams while blowing up a condom; pieces on the dynamics of domme-ing and servicing second-hand hearts; essays on the importance of activism and its obstacles; short fiction exploring fantasies of violent liberation; tender letters to loved ones and younger selves that reflect on their journeys and how far they’ve come.
The Missing Anthology re-centres sex workers’ voices from the margins, bringing them into the conversation about an industry often treated as illicit and taboo. By doing so, it aims to address issues of inequality, social and economic mobility, stigmatization, and safety that are fuelled by misconceptions about sex workers and their profession.
About the Editors
Vanessa Ho (she/they) joined Project X in 2011 and became its executive director in 2019. Raksha Mahtani (they/them) is a researcher-writer-facilitator and vice-president on the board of Project X. nor (they/them) is the Programmes Manager at Project X.
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