Gardens at Phoenix Park
Publisher,EPIGRAM
Publication Date,
Format, Paperback
Weight,
No. of Pages, 280
Shelf: Fiction / Adult Fiction / Asian Literary Fiction
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Longlisted for the 2022 Epigram Books Fiction Prize
Gardens at Phoenix Park is a fictional story set against actual events, of three students who meet during the turbulent period of anti-government protests in Singapore of the late 1970s.
As these fellow travellers cross the continent of the next four decades, their relationships with each other transform in complexity against a backdrop of social and political engineering. Min Chan is detained under the Internal Security Act. Shu Peng becomes complicit in the machinations of the ruling party. And Martin comes out of the closet during the 2011 general election.
Even as the characters’ lives are shaped by events of the day, they also push back to shape a better future for themselves, as well as for the country.
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Wong Souk Yee is the author of Death of a Perm Sec (finalist for the 2015 Epigram Books Fiction Prize and 2018 Singapore Literature Prize for Fiction) and a former political detainee, who contested the 2015 General Election as a member of the Singapore Democratic Party. She also co-founded the now-defunct theatre group Third Stage. In 1987, she was detained for allegedly taking part in a Marxist conspiracy against the government; she later co-wrote and co-directed the play Square Moon, staged in 2013, about detention without trial. Wong holds a PhD in literature and creative writing from UNSW Sydney.
