Chinese Whispers: The Literature and Politics of Nanyang Writers
By William Tham
March 2022 FEATURE
“Man is a restless creature, nomadic at heart.” Tash Aw, Map of the Invisible World.NANYANG, the “South Sea” in the Chinese imagination, is rich in stories – the ones written not just in the Mainland but also by the diaspora. It is not just an entry in the maritime records of the Ming Shi-lu, a point of historical interest. Indeed, the full diversity of Chinese literature from Nanyang, subdivided by languages that are not necessarily mutually intelligible, is difficult to...
William Tham
has been published in NANG, PR&TA, The Best of World SF: Volume 2, and the Southeast Asian Review of English. He co-edited The Second Link: An Anthology of Malaysian and Singaporean Writing.
