Stand Alone

“Tay writes with the clarifty of mind of a Singaporean who is at peace with himself and who knows his own place. There is a centre of experience from which Tay draws to craft his characters, a centre which is identifiably Singaporean and yet which possesses the breath of vision of the universal. Stand Alone apparently marks the beginning of a new literary wave.”
—Mary Loh in www.postcolonialweb.org

“Tay seeks to create a Singapore identity out of the brew of heterogeneous immigrants and indigenous Malays... [He] takes the stories and myths of all the people – from the Ramayana, the Bible, Chinese culture, et cetera – to retell, revise and requestion/requisition them.”
—Peter Nazareth in World Literature Today

Simon Tay Seong Chee is a Singaporean legal academic and former Nominated Member of Parliament. Apart from his academic and political interests Tay is a poet and author. His 2009 non-fiction book Asia Alone: The Dangerous Post-Crisis Divide from America was reviewed by The Economist and The Financial Times. His novel City of Small Blessings won the 2010 Singapore Literature Prize. His collection of short stories, Stand Alone, was awarded the Highly Commended prize from the National Book Development Council of Singapore Awards.