Singapore authors, storytellers at the World Book Fair

new delhi: one of the popular tales about singapore's discovery and its subsequent naming as the lion city is believed to trace back to the time when an indian king on his way to conquer china, stumbled upon this little island. a sequel to this story unravels the mystery of the famous merlion (half-lion and half-fish chimera) which has come to be the country's tourism mascot. rosemarie somaiah, a singaporean storyteller and writer, tells everybody about this in her 15-minute-long limerick, in as she puts it, "really bad rhyme." rosemarie is part of the contingent of writers from singapore which is the guest country in the ongoing world book fair 2015. singapore, has witnessed repeated colonisations and partitions, giving rise to its multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual character thereby vindicating its diverse literature and culture. peranakan author joshephine chia (58), who grew up in kampong, a malay village and later moved to the outskirts of london, describes how her identity frequently kept on changing with the state of her country: first as a british colony, then under the chinese influence and later on the partition with malaysia followed by its achievement of nationhood. "we were first british, then we became malays after independence and finally we became singaporeans once we achieved nationhood," says chia, whose book 'kampong spirit – gotong royong' is available for sale at the fair. chia's book, a collection of short stories from 1955-65, the "dramatic decade" brings to life the colorful characters of the villagers with whom she grew up. "though deprived of modern comforts like water and electricity, multi racial neighbours lived harmoniously with each other with a strong sense of community and a wonderful zest for life," she says. the first language for playwright haresh sharma was malay, the second being english. substantiating his argument explaining the multi-lingual nature of the south-east asian country, the indian-born writer speaks about the various dialects of english that prevail in singapore. "even the english is not same for all singaporeans. there are various levels of english," the singapore literature prize winner says. he makes a passing reference to 'singlish', a colloquially spoken form of the english language. in award-winning novelist isa kamari's historical fictions, the indigenous people of singapore and their inter-religious tensions find place. kamari, who writes primarily in malay, has been translated extensively in several languages including english and mandarin. the author stresses the need to explore the possibilities of the course that history "could have taken." "we should not always be looking at the history told by the authorities. literature should be able to bring-out the suppressed history," says the author of six novels. meanwhile, the book fair is themed on 'suryodaya: emerging voices from north-east india and south' organised by the national book trust (nbt) in association with the india trade promotion organisation (itpo) at pragati maidan. korea is the focus country of the fair, which is set to go on till february 22.