This review was first published in The Star on 9th July, 2017
Sad Girls: A Novel
Author: Lang Leav
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 362 pages
‘Your first love isn’t the first person you give your heart to – it’s the first one who breaks it.’
That line, on the cover flap of Lang Leav’s debut novel Sad Girls, is a quote from the book, but also a prose poem (from Leav’s collection Lullabies).Read More »
An edited, shorter version of this interview was first published on 31 August, 2008 in The Star
By DAPHNE LEE
SOME of her poems make me feel uncomfortable,’ said a friend of mine to whom I’d given Bernice Chauly’s poetry collection, Book of Sins.
She didn’t mean that the poems were bad, simply that she felt that they revealed things about her – secret, painful things that she never thought any one else would share let alone understand.
Chauly’s poems are deeply personal. They may or may not be autobiographical in detail, but the stories they tell feel like they were shaped by real, not simply imagined emotions, and of course memories. They are Chauly’s emotions, memories and stories, but they also speak to and for women the world over. They are familiar tales, but, filtered through the voice of an individual, they defy the cliches of everyday experience and become significant, compelling and unique.Read More »
SAYANG: PANTUN & SELOKA KANAK-KANAK
Compiled by Azah Aziz
Illustrator: Dzulkafli Buyong
Publisher: MPH Publishing, 96 pages
A LARGE colourful book caught my eye in a local bookstore last week. Sayang: Pantun & Seloka Kanak-Kanak is a collection of old Malay nursery rhymes and songs, compiled by Azah Aziz and illustrated by Dzulkafli Buyong.
I recognised many of the rhymes in this book (for example Timang Tinggi-tinggi, Oh Bangau! andGendang Gendut) from my childhood, , but I also noticed the exclusion of some of my favourites, like Waktu Fajar Saya Bangun, Bangun Pagi and Tek-tek Bunyi Hujan.Read More »
daphne lee 