Song Of Singapore

The worlds of nursery rhymes and Singapore hawker food collide in this book. Dive into fractured nursery rhymes with a local twist, featuring Singapore hawker food.Imagine Humpty Dumpty enjoying kaya toast, Jack and Jill grilling satay on a hill and the three blind mice eating chicken rice at the hawker centre. Wouldn't that be a funny sight?Cheeky illustrations highlight aspects of Singapore hawker culture that children will have fun identifying. Young readers (and not so young ones) can sing or read these hawker food rhymes and follow the familiar rhythms, while naming the well-loved hawker fare that appear in the rhymes.

Legend has it that a magical spring lies dormant in the heart of the Khuzar desert. Said to be a gift from the gods, the spring holds the cure to all mortal woes. As mercenaries from everywhere try in vain to find the mystical spring, 17-yearold Desert Rose is on the run after her chieftain father is overthrown and captured by rebel clans. Now out for revenge, she sets out alone to the Oasis Capital to assassinate the person instigating the rebellion: the corrupt Emperor Zhao, who will stop at nothing to possess the elixir of life from the spring. To infiltrate the Imperial Guard, Desert Rose must pass a series of trials to test her wit, mettle, and her loyalty. But the real test lies in navigating the cut throat court politics with no ally but a rogue prince and a latent magic stirring in her - magic that can bring a kingdom to its knees or destroy her from within.

Voted Best Indie Book by Kirkus Reviews and awarded a prestigious Blue Star. Ping, an American citizen, returns to Singapore after many years and sees a country transformed by prosperity. Gone are the boatmen and hawkers who once lived along the crowded riverside and in their place rise the gleaming towers of the financial district. Her childhood growing up among the river people had been very different, and leaving her first love Weng, a musician, for America, had been devastating. Now that she is back in Singapore, can she face her former lover and reveal the secret that has separated them for many years? Reviews: “Lim’s affecting, lushly textured historical novel... A fine, deeply felt saga of lives caught up in progress that’s as heartbreaking as it is hopeful.” Kirkus, 5 * Blue Star Review "The River’s Song is a startling work of brilliance that leaves the reader spellbound." kitaab.org “...just as the best novels should be but so rarely are: like immersion in a vivid dream. I couldn’t decide whether to read it slowly in order to savour every word, or to race along, mesmerised by Lim’s dazzling story-telling.” Jill Dawson, British author of The Great Lover, (Richard and Judy’s Bookclub) “...a winning coming of age novel that bridges the years and countries. Here is the buoyancy of sentences and a testimony of resilience.” Krys Lee, award-winning Korean author of The Drifting House “...powerful, deep and moving – draws you in and pulls you along irresistibly. Its heartfelt swell will carry you away to a place of passion and resonant conviction.” Kevin MacNeil, Scottish author of the best-selling The Stornoway Way “A touching story that retrieves Singapore’s fast disappearing past and gives its famous river the depth and colour of a people’s history, and a wonderful rendition of the pipa, on the page, as mother and daughter play their songs from the heart.” Romesh Gunasekera author of Reef, shortlisted for the Booker Prize Singapore Literature Prize Winner and South East Asia Write Award winner Suchen Christine Lim is one of Singapore’s most distinguished writers. In 1992, her third novel, Fistful of Colours, was awarded the Inaugural Singapore Literature Prize. A Bit Of Earth (2000), her fourth novel, and her popular short-story collection, The Lies That Build A Marriage (2007) were later shortlisted for the same prize. Awarded a Fulbright grant in 1997, she is a Fellow of the International Writers Program, University of Iowa, and the first Singapore writer honoured as the university’s International Writer-in-Residence in 2000. A regular guest at Writers' Festivals in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, and UK she has also held writing residencies in Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea and at the University of Western Australia in Perth. In 2011, she was the Visiting Fellow in Creative Writing at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. In 2012, she won the South East Asia Write Award. In the UK, she has regularly been writer-in- residence at the Arvon Foundation and has tutored at Moniack Mhor in Scotland.