Book A Writer Open Class | A Translingual Toolkit with Alfian Sa’at

Fresh off our sold-out run in June, Book A Writer presents a special, one-time only workshop with writer Alfian Sa’at – now open to all ages and experience levels

With limited seats available, book now to experience the magic of our Book A Writer programmes.

DETAILS

Dates: 19 October 2024

Time: 2pm-4pm

Location: Sing Lit Station, 22 Dickson Road, #02-01, Singapore 209506

PLEASE NOTE: Sing Lit Station is only accessible by stairs. Please drop us a message at bookawriter@singlitstation.com if you have any accessibility questions. We also have a cat in the office, with antihistamines available in the pantry area for anyone with allergies.

 

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

A Translingual Toolkit: Writing in Multiple Languages with Alfian Sa’at

In Singapore, a universal bilingual education has meant that most of us speak English as well as a mother tongue language. Yet many of us treat these languages as separate, and often describe ourselves as ‘deficient’ or ‘one-sided’ bilinguals, often with a mastery over just one of those two languages.

Enter the idea of the ‘translingual’, someone who moves across languages, and is interested in the contact between those languages. What does it mean to write in two languages, at the same time? In the plays of Haresh Sharma, characters are using English, but with Malay, Mandarin or Tamil syntax and loan words, creating new theatrical languages. And various Chinese-background poets have tried their hand at poems which elaborate on Chinese ideograms.

In this workshop, we will explore the creation of translingual texts—how the vocabulary and structure of languages like Malay, Tamil, Hindi etc can inflect our own English-language writings. We will test the effects of translingual experimentations on other Anglophone readers: as novelty, strangeness, haunting and mystery.

Note: Recommended for participants with some basic knowledge of a non-English language.


ABOUT ALFIAN SA’AT

Alfian Sa’at is the Resident Playwright of Wild Rice. His published works include three collections of poetry: One Fierce Hour, A History of Amnesia and The Invisible Manuscript; a collection of short stories, Corridor; a collection of flash fiction, Malay Sketches; three collections of plays as well as the published play Cooling-Off Day and Hotel. He has also translated two novels from Malay to English: Isa Kamari’s The Tower and Mohamed Latiff Mohamed’s The Widower. In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. His plays and short stories have been translated into Thai, Indonesian, German, Swedish, Mandarin, Korean and Japanese.

No Readgrets Book Club Discussion on 14 Sep 2024: Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC)

Our next book club event of the year explores the Malay identity and racial relations in this third volume of the Collected Plays series by Alfian Sa’at.

Book Summary:
Alfian Sa’at explores the Malay identity and racial relations in this third volume of the Collected Plays series. This volume collects plays written and staged in Malay, and translated to English for the very first time.

In Nadirah, a young woman is shocked to find out her mother wants to marry a non-Muslim. In Parah, a group of students can no longer ignore the stereotypes and prejudices that divide the races, and the strain it puts on their friendship. In Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC), we’re transported to an alternate reality where the Chinese are the minority in Singapore. And in Your Sister’s Husband, five sisters try their hardest to reckon with their superstitious, old-fashioned eldest to farcical ends, raising questions about black sheep, outcasts and sociopaths.

No Readgrets discussions are safe spaces to nurture conversations and connections over inspiring books and explorations beyond their pages.

This time, we will be discussing these plays from Collected Plays Three:

  1. Nadirah
  2. Parah
  3. Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC)
  4. Your Sister’s Husband

Event Flow:

  • 1100-1230: Book discussion
  • 1230-1300: Stay around to chat if you’d like to!

This is a ticketed event – please feel free to grab a beverage and some bites to support our amazing venue partner Crane. Slots are limited so sign up soon!

The book for discussion, Collected Plays Three is available at NLB libraries and major bookstores.

PSST! Upon purchasing a seat to our book club session, you’ll receive a special 10% discount code to attend the staging of Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC)by Teater Ekamatra that’s happening from 5 to 15 September! Get your tickets here, and enter the discount code upon checkout!

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About No Readgrets Book Club:

No Readgrets discussions are safe spaces to nurture conversations and connections over inspiring books and explorations beyond their pages.

About Crane:

CRANE is an open minded, collaborative, socially conscious community – free from prejudice – and built upon a foundation of idea-sharing and learning from one another. At the core, Crane is a global ecosystem with various dimensions spanning from community building to retail and hospitality. Crane redefines the concept of sociality by providing spaces and tools to encourage the sharing of skills and passions between people of all cultures and ages.

About Teater Ekamatra:

Teater Ekamatra is an established and exciting Singaporean arts company that spotlights artists of diverse ethnicities. We are living out our vision of being at the heart of theatre, by staging daring works that address socio-political issues.

Teater Ekamatra has been commissioned by notable international arts festivals and has also won numerous accolades, especially at Singapore’s highest platform for excellence in theatre, the Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards, where our trophies have included Best Director, Best Actor, Best Costume and Best Original Script several times.

Difference Engine presents All the Things She Said: Women’s Voices in Comics

This International Women’s Day, join us for a conversation about the power of women’s voices in comics with creators from Difference Engine, an independent comics publisher based in Singapore.

Tackling big topics through small but powerful publications within the DE Shorts imprint, Andeasyand (Creator of A Drip. A Drop. A Deluge: A Period Tragicomedy), Vinita Ramani, and Griselda Gabriele (Creators of Bearing Witness) discuss how exploring their shared experience of womanhood has empowered difficult conversations to be had through comics, whether it’s through quirky humour or raw honesty.

Come down to Book Bar on 8 March, 7:30 pm as we share stories about friendship, community, and all the messy and magnificent parts of being a woman.

DE Shorts titles including A Drip. A Drop. A Deluge: A Period Tragicomedy and Bearing Witness will also be available for purchase and signing by the creators. Light bites and drinks will be available for purchase as well.

About the Panellists
Vinita Ramani is a writer and editor. She has previously worked as a journalist for various local and regional publications, and as a publicist for film festivals, both in Singapore and abroad. Find her online at vinitaramani.com/

Griselda Gabriele is a Singapore-based Indonesian artist with experience in editorial illustration and visual development for games and animation. She is passionate about storytelling, and interested in exploring the diverse history, (pop) culture, and faiths of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Find her online at grisgabriele.com/

Andeasyand is a Nurulhuda Izyan born and raised in Singapore. To use up old name cards after her first marketing job, she discovered the world of illustration and found ways to describe the beauty of the ordinary with doodles and scribbles. With that new power, she navigates difficult topics like menstruation, anxiety, marriage, and weight, as well as silly daily musings.

About the Moderator
Lalitha Aiyer is a Community Engagement Specialist at Difference Engine. Her experiences in community arts include assisting in the curation of ‘Thamizhachi: a digital museum of Singaporean Tamil women under construction’ as part of N.O.W 2021 and co-producing a decolonial initiative ‘More Uncomfortable Truths’ at the Bristol Museum, England.