Gilbert Koh - Poems Here And There

“Didn't write much at all in 2012. But the world around me recycled some of my old poems and they got a new breath of life. Recording my poetic momentos [sic] for 2012 here:

PROJECT LAVA

This month, I was mentioned on the Straits Times' front page. Not only on the front page, but in the headline article. Nice publicity for the literary arts:

This was about the National Art Council's Project Lava. The idea was to pair up a visual artist with a poem, and have the artist create something based on his interpretation of the poem.

In my case, the artist was Sonny Liew (who has previously illustrated Iron Man for Marvel Comics - how cool!) who created a very large mural (16 x 4 metres) at Punggol Waterway. The mural incorporates an old poem of mine Accident. More details in the follow-up article in the ST's Life! section.”

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NTU hosts award-winning novelist Tash Aw as international writer-in-residence

“Acclaimed novelist Tash Aw will be the National Arts Council/Nanyang Technological University (NTU) international writer-in-residence at NTU starting on 10 January 2013.

Cover of The Harmony Silk Factory

Mr Aw is the author of three novels, which have been translated into 23 languages. The multi-award-winning Malaysian writer is one of Southeast Asia's most respected literary figures.

Published in 2005, Mr Aw's first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory, was long-listed for the renowned Man Booker Prize (2005) and won the prestigious 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award as well as the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Asia Pacific region). The novel was also long-listed for the prestigious International Impac Dublin Award (2007) and the Guardian First Book Prize. His second novel, Map of the Invisible World, was published in May 2009, also to critical acclaim. A third novel, Five Star Billionaire, is scheduled to be published in March 2013.”

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