Robert Yeo, playwright and author of The Adventures of Holden Heng “Gregory Nalpon wrote from the margins about a Singapore in the throes of great change, and I am convinced that he is our first true proponent of magical realism.” Ng Yi-Sheng, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore “ collected works in The Wayang at Eight Milestone seem to work as a veritable time machine, winding us readers back to the gritty world of old Singapore and immersing us in its saudade, its beautiful spirit of melancholy… a pioneer Singaporean storyteller like no other.” Cyril Wong, author of Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories and The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza His poetic, fable-esque narratives possess a sense of magic that is almost spiritual, full of moral lessons about the abjection of human desires, death, and a knowing presence at the heart of the natural world.” “Gregory Nalpon’s stories and evocative commentaries might seem nostalgic for a pre-development Singapore, but make no mistake-there is little sentimentality here, as marginalised characters get fleshed out with brutality, as well as compassion. Philip Holden, Asiatic IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
“ stories often produce a resolution at the level of narrative but keep cultural elements in suspense, a series of intersecting gazes that never quite align…Angus Whitehead is to be congratulated both for making Nalpon’s works available to a new and wider audience, and also in the process enabling new perspectives on literary history in Singapore.” Edwin Thumboo, award-winning Singaporean poet and academic “I am glad that Gregory Nalpon’s work at last has a chance of being recognised. Nalpon’s inspired blend of close observation, legend, local superstition and peculiarly eclectic reading results in some of the most imaginative and exciting writing produced in Singapore during the 1960s and 1970s, including authentic descriptions of indigenous culture and working-class men and women rarely found in Singaporean writing of the period.
With this collection, a vital Singaporean voice is finally recovered. Through his writing, Nalpon poignantly records a lost, rich world: the colourful, exciting and sometimes perilous Singapore of half a century ago. This long overdue collection gathers together sixteen of Gregory Nalpon’s short stories, eleven of his essays, and a selection of his sketches of life in coffee shops, hawker stalls and samshu shops.
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