Singapore

Singaporean writer Dave Chua won a Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1996 for his novel Gone Case, which he recently adapted into a two-volume graphic novel in collaboration with artist and writer Koh Hong Teng. The second volume was released in October 2011. Mr.

Dave Chua’s award-winning Gone Case takes a familiar literary genre, the bildungsroman, and sets it in late 20th-century Singapore, with poignant results. Twelve-year-old Yong struggles with schoolwork, develops a crush on a friend’s older sister, weathers threats of violence from a bully, and takes care of his younger brother, all while watching his parents’ marriage fall apart.

GASPP: A Gay Anthology of Singapore Poetry and Prose (2010) comes with a breath of the sensational, from its title to its cheeky cover, exploiting the contradiction of a celebration of homosexual culture in staid Singapore. It’s both warranted and unnecessary at once—while homosexual sex acts (specifically man to man) continue to be criminalized by Singapore law, homosexuality seems to be condoned or tolerated by law enforcement and much of the citizenry, though not by more conservative and traditional segments of society.