Family. Relationships. Love, food and babies. The things closest to the hearts of women - and men - all over the world.
This first collection of ten plays, monologues and a film script from actor/director/playwright Verena Tay, deftly written from the perspective of a distinctly Singaporean woman, plunges us deep into the intricate female psyche. Firmly rooted in both the heartlands and urban space of Singapore, these works are steeped in the island's unique flavour of modern sophistication and tradition, multi-culturalism and ethnicity, past and present. They come straight from the heart, exposing issues both serious and frivolous: sex, bonds, stress, the search for identity and the perfect shoe.
Few writers can match the precision and sensitivity with which Verena reflects the female condition - her characters' crisp, colloquial language belies her grasp of what a woman is.
Incisive without being judgement, passionate without being feminist: the simple charm of Verena's writing increases with each reading.
Descendants of Eunuch Admiral draws explicit parallels between Zheng He and contemporary man in the cost to be paid for service to the state. Descendants seems to say that cultural identity and history are hard to protect from the politico-economic realm. One who serves the state must face this challenge - multiple cultural attachment and identities are offered as goals to aspire to.
In The Spirits Play, five Japanese spirits - a General, a Man, a Mother, a Girl and a Poet - recall their life experience in the Second World War. They are collectively thrown into turmoil in the process of recollection and recall, and in their wish to "make sense" of the war and its atrocities inflicted upon them, not only by the foreign enemy but also by their own government and army.
Only A Sandpiper: Appreciating Classical Chinese Poetry brushes off the cobwebs from the poetry of ancient China. Savour the works of legendary greats with renowned author and columnist Li Lienfung, as she explains the tricks and traps of writing traditional Chinese poetry through original and translated examples of shi, ci, and dui lian, complete with hanyu pinyin (romanised pronunciation). Gain insight into the life and times of masters like Du Fu and Su Dongpo, Li Bai and Li Shangyin. Playing with words never seemed easier.
Only A Sandpiper contains more than 40 traditional Chinese poems by more than 10 poets. For centuries the feeling of the poets, together with their thoughts, tales and wishes, were passed on by word of mouth all over China. In this long-awaited book, author Li Lienfung passes on her accumulated knowledge in her own words. She shows us that the Chinese language itself is an art, and that the art of traditional Chinese poetry is to put your feelings, your life, your everything so sparingly and subtly into certain time-honoured forms, that people who read them hundreds of years later will still understand you and relate to your sentiments.
Join Li Lienfung as she teaches us to appreciate traditional Chinese poetry. Together with her, read about the life and feelings, the love, sorrow, sadness and bitterness of the poets.
