About

“This is, for me, one of the most creative, difficult, satisfying collections to have emerged in Singapore in a long time.” — Anne Lee Tzu Pheng

“To read them is to be drawn into processes of juxtaposition, transformation and word-play, and to share in Ang’s strange yet precise way of seeing.” — Dr Jane Griffiths, Literary Editor of The Oxford Magazine, Placito Fellow & Tutor in English at Wadham College

In an era of Marie Kondo and de-cluttering, the objects that we live with are the precious few that spark joy. Burning Walls for Paper Spirits is a collection about how everyday objects become invested with soul, and how we have in turn become thing-like amidst the mechanics of everyday living. While androids dream about electric sheep, we are electric sheep dreaming life into androids. We are trees who know ourselves only as paper, folded and burned. With whimsical meditations on why walls are like skin and why the rain in Singapore is capitalist, Ann Ang’s debut collection refreshes the edges of sentience dulled by an age of hot takes and commodification.

There will only be a limited print run for this title, after which it will go onto a print-on-demand platform. Orders placed in advance of the November launch will be signed by the author.

Author

Best known as the author of Bang My Car, a Singlish-English collection of short stories about a disgruntled uncle, Ann Ang returns to the HDB heartland with her first poetry collection, Burning Walls for Paper Spirits. Quieter but in some ways more incisive, Ann’s new volume collects and extends her published verse in the Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, California Quarterly and the Jakarta Post among other venues. A co-editor of the literary anthologies Poetry Moves (2020) and Food Republic (2020), Ann is also the coordinating editor of PR&TA (Practice, Research & Tangential Activities), a new peer-reviewed journal of creative theory and practice in Southeast Asia.