Patriotism: do you have it? How does one express it? Is it worth it? The Singapore Trilogy—consisting of Are You There, Singapore?, One Year Back Home and Changi—has raised questions since the seventies about nationhood that we are still asking today. Influential in steering early English-language theatre in Singapore away from its colonial roots, Robert Yeo conceived of characters that are believably local in speech, thought and behaviour, and provided a dramatic platform for the dialogue...

On 5 July 1981, Sir Stamford Raffles leaves his pedestal by the Singapore River and pays a visit to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the Istana. What follows is a wide-ranging discussion, both heated and humorous, that illustrates just how very human Singapore’s two most towering figures were. This conversation, along with the introduction of Munshi Abdullah (author of the Hikayat Abdullah), provides a fascinating backdrop for the investigation of historical authority and grand narratives.

Enter the world of Holden Heng, the not-so-lucky-in-love protagonist of this comic realist novel that documents social currents transforming the Lion City. Described as the most Singaporean of Singapore writers, Robert Yeo presents an immensely entertaining story of a typical Singaporean man’s escapades with three very different women. Will he ever find true love?

Looking back, every person should have a memory of loss although he may not necessarily appreciate truly what he would find.Robert Yeo relives the memory of one such loss in poems alive with youthful longing. Included in this collection are also poems about the facts of experience, observed by an eye as canny as the voice is commanding. At 80, the storehouse of skill and confidence is in ample display. Colette is a celebration of the vitality of life, as lived through poet...

Simon Koo is an ambitious Australian-born Chinese who goes to Singapore in the mid-sixties to work for an advertising agency. But the Wing brothers, who run the agency, are not what they seem. There is soon trouble when Simon falls in love with the forbidden Mercy B. Lord.With no family or connections, this beautiful young woman is powerless to resist the evil influence of Beatrice Fong, a manipulative businesswoman who, in league with the Wing brothers, lures her into the internat...

The diaries of the last British Governor of Hong Kong, published on the 25th anniversary of the handoverIn June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not (as other British colonies over the decades) for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. Over the next five years he kept this diary, which describes in detail how Hong Kong was ...

A boldly rendered—and deeply intimate—account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises.“[A] pulsing debut . . . about what it means to find your place in a city as it vanishes before your eyes.”—The New York Times Book ReviewONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington PostHong Kong is known as a plac...

**'This generation's Wild Swans' Daily TelegraphXiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her.**When she is born in 1973, her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, and suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea.Once Upon a Time in the East tak...

Since June 2003 Xinran has been writing about China in her weekly column in the Guardian. She has covered a vast range of topics from food to sex education, and from the experiences of British mothers who have adopted Chinese daughters, to whether Chinese people do Christmas shopping or have swimming pools.Each of her columns inspired letters and questions and more opportunities for Xinran to shed light on the culture of her native land. What the Chinese Don't Eat...

...There were more people in the streets, all of them moving toward the lighthouse. Each walked alone, neither speaking to the others nor making any signs of recognition. They simply drifted. Slowly, steadily, inexorably...Elliott Graven was prepared to be bored by his new town, and prepared to be annoyed by it. After all, it was a run-down fishing village in the back woods, and moving there suddenly had been his father's idea, not Elliott's. But he wasn't prepared for the sleepwalk...

‘Impressive … Fascinating’ Sunday Times‘An authoritative history’ Financial Times‘Gripping and richly researched’ Rana MitterA superb new history of the rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule.The rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule are told with unique insight in this new history by Michael Sheridan, drawing on eyewitness rep...

‘So wise and so well done. It made me wish it were much longer than it is’ Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieFrom the award-winning author of Five Star Billionaire and We, The Survivors comes a whirlwind personal history of modern Asia, as told through his Malaysian and Chinese heritage.If we are lucky we will find writing that grips us with its vitality, beauty and significance – Strangers on a Pier is like that’ D...