Personal tales in print

From Ram Puneet Tiwary's sensational account of his trial for murder and eventual acquittal to celebrity fashion director Daniel Boey's upcoming autobiography, a wide variety of Singaporeans are putting their life stories into print.

Three of the five books in the Singapore Literature Prize's inaugural English non- fiction category this year are not political or academic texts but memoirs.

They are Kampong Boy by controversial lawyer M. Ravi; Gotong Royong by full-time writer Josephine Chia, which chronicles her childhood in Potong Pasir; and The Mango Tree by heritage and research consultant Hidayah Amin, which is also a picture book for children. The winner in the category will be announced next month.

Local publishers have brought out at least a dozen autobiographies this year with another lot slated for Singapore's 50th birthday next year.

While publishers often have to coax celebrities to tell all in print, the average person on the street is apparently racing to set down his or her story.

Memoir-writing workshops are popular - 293 people attended the two-day Auto/Biography forum at The Arts House in August with a dozen aged 40 to 82 signing up for a further eight-week intensive course on how to pen their life stories.

Publisher Peter Schoppert of NUS Press says he receives about 15 proposals a year from writers of memoirs or biographies.

He publishes those of historical or academic interest, ranging from a reprint of a 17th-century memoir from a Flemish gem trader who spent time in what is now Singapore (The Memoirs And Memorials Of Jacques De Coutre, 2014) to noise engineer Tan Kok Yang's memoir of growing up in Queenstown (From The Blue Windows, 2013, Chinese translation out next year from Equatorial Wind Publishing House).

Mr Schoppert says: "It's the first draft of history, good raw material for academics."

Publisher Violet Phoon of Marshall Cavendish says: "People who reach a certain stage in their lives or career want to tell their story."

The publishing house is bringing out a bumper crop of Singapore stories this quarter, including Catherine Lim's just-launched Roll Out The Champagne, Singapore!, the novelist's memories of life in Singapore after she moved here from Kedah 46 years ago; as well as the books of Boey, magician Ning Cai - better known as Magic Babe Ning - and primary school teacher Ravindran Kanna.

Boey's The Book Of Daniel, to be launched on Nov 1 at the Singapore Writers Festival, is more a record of big names and agencies in the local fashion scene, spiced with a few personal nuggets. "I didn't want it to be just about me, but also about the industry that shaped me," says Boey, 49.

Readers learn why people call him a "diva" - he has thrown a headset at someone in fury and his signature phrase is "take your bag and f*** off" - and that he battled a terrible skin rash while his face was beamed live to thousands as a judge on reality TV show Asia's Next Top Model.

It was also the fashion industry which gave birth to Singapore's first best- selling celebrity tell-all: Bonny Hicks' Excuse Me, Are You A Model? in 1990. The first print run of 12,000 sold out in three days, as readers tutted over her forthright talk about romances with men and one woman, photographer Pat Chan.

Sales rose again after Hicks' tragic death in the 1997 SilkAir crash. Publisher Alex Chacko says the book has sold 50,000 copies in its lifetime, which is outstanding for a local adult non-fiction title not featuring Lee Kuan Yew.

Books written by or about the statesman sell in the tens of thousands, but for all other titles, 2,000 copies count as bestsellers, say Singapore distributors.

Celebrity tell-alls remain rare - the last was perhaps radio host Vernetta Lopez's Memoirs Of A DJ (2012, Marshall Cavendish), which gave details of the break-up of her marriage to fellow DJ Mark Richmond. The book was on The Straits Times bestseller list for two full months after its release, but books about the seamier side of life are a perennial draw.

Tiwary's 99 Months, his account of the 2003 murders of his two housemates in Sydney, and his own subsequent conviction, re-trial and acquittal, has been on The Straits Times bestseller list since it was released late last month.

Some memoirs are a harder sell.

Ethos Books just last week published The Sound Of Sch by polytechnic lecturer Danielle Lim, which the publisher hopes will sell at least 1,000 copies.

The author writes of life with her schizophrenic uncle and her mother's struggles to care for him until he died in 1994. There is such social stigma against mental illness that she does not use her mother's real name in the book and worries that her three children might be teased or ostracised at school if other parents hear about the book.

Still, Lim, 40, says: "There's not enough awareness about mental illness and mental health. Maybe if this book can help people, it would make my mother and my uncle's struggles not in vain."

Her publisher, Ethos Books, also brought out the Singapore Literature Prize-shortlisted Kampong Boy, whose author M. Ravi has bipolar disorder.

The company's founder, Mr Fong Hoe Fang, is also behind political memoirs such as Beyond The Blue Gate (2010) by lawyer and political detainee Teo Soh Lung - it has sold 4,500 copies through direct sales.

Ethos Books also published a collection of stories from Singapore exiles, Escape From The Lion's Paw (2012), which inspired film-maker Tan Pin Pin's award-winning work, To Singapore, With Love, which has been prohibited from being publicly screened here.

Mr Fong says he publishes memoirs "because I think the stories are tremendous. There's something for all of us here to learn".

But not every memoir writer seeks to have his or her life story printed for public consumption.

Trainer Thomas Kuan, 66, mentored 13 students at The Arts House last year and is taking another dozen from the ages of 40 to 82 through their paces this year.

While he encourages them to pen their experiences, he would not want to see his own life story in print, though he has penned it for his three daughters to read. "It's more for my children. I want to tell them what daddy has gone through in life," he says.

Similarly, novelist Catherine Lim, 73, says this year's Roll Out The Champagne, Singapore! and the personal meditations in Unhurried Thoughts At My Funeral (2005) are the closest she will get to writing an autobiography.

"I'm not ready to write a memoir yet. There are things that are too difficult to get right," she says.

Instead, she dishes in the new book on her writing process, what inspires her stories and also that headline-grabbing open letter in 1994 to then prime minister Goh Chok Tong, stating that there was a "great affective divide" between the ruling People's Action Party and the people. Published in The Straits Times, the letter sparked a rebuke from Mr Goh, much public debate and earned Lim a reputation as a "political commentator".

Lim says what keeps her from writing a memoir about her life is how full disclosure affects her nearest and dearest.

Already, she is worried about the family reception to the few stories from her childhood in Roll Out The Champagne, Singapore!, including revelations that her father sold her mother's jewellery to fuel his drinking habit.

"There are quandaries I haven't resolved so I think it would be a little difficult to write an autobiography," she says.

But if someone were to offer to do a biography of her? "Go right ahead," she says with a laugh.

Magician is just an illusion

After 10 years of fiery illusions and bone-bending escapes on stage and TV around the world, Ning Cai is packing up her bag of magic tricks and putting her contortionist skills to use in yoga.

She is also publishing a memoir of her life on and off stage, Who Is Magic Babe Ning? in stores this month from Marshall Cavendish.

The 32-year-old, whose professional name as a magician was Magic Babe Ning, is tired of travelling and is looking forward to a quiet life here with her Singaporean partner, who works in the arts. She says the book will expose the homebody and geek behind the nymphet who posed for men's magazines such as FHM and appeared on stage in skimpy outfits.

"The 'Magic Babe' persona was my biggest illusion," she says. "I just want people to know the story of the girl behind 'Magic Babe Ning'."

No stranger to personal writing, she and best friend Pamela Ho published a light-hearted travelogue in 2012, Adventures Of 2 Girls.

Who Is Magic Babe Ning? is similarly chock-full of humour, but there is plenty of drama, from onstage accidents where she nearly impaled herself after lock-picking her way out of a cage, to her brush with oral cancer in her early 20s.

The eldest of three girls, she was into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while classmates at Methodist Girls' School were playing with Barbie dolls.

She graduated with a diploma in film, sound and voice from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, but gave tuition to support the family as her father, who worked for a petrochemical company, lost his job. Later she worked in marketing at The Heeren.

Her childhood fascination with magic was reawakened at age 22 when she did charity magic shows for the Children's Cancer Foundation. Then, a meeting with fellow illusionist J.C. Sum in 2006 led to professional gigs.

In 2007, she went solo on stage and, by 2012, was shooting illusions for French, Japanese and Italian TV stations or performing live for international audiences. Her signature tricks ranged from great escapes, often involving sharp objects such as spikes and swords, to making people disappear.

Yet there were several bumps in her career, placed by male magicians who felt "a woman's place was as an assistant".

Her tricks were stolen. An online store she started to retail magic paraphernalia was "raided" when the authorities were given an anonymous tip that she was selling illegal DVDs rather than props.

The allegation was unfounded, but the raid resulted in her closing the store.

Her last major gig was a suspended escape act for the Singapore Night Festival last year and she is still being inundated by offers - which she finally put paid to with a Facebook video explaining her retirement last week.

She is more than ready to give up gigs, saying: "I used to look in the mirror and didn't recognise the woman in there."

This July and August, she did a 200-hour yoga teacher training course at Vikasa Yoga in Koh Samui and is considering becoming a professional yoga instructor. Yet she would like to see more women take up magic. "I hope my story can inspire younger girls. As you know, magic is male-dominated and when Magic Babe happened, it shook things up."

Who Is Magic Babe Ning? will be in stores on Nov 27 and retails at $23 before GST.

Must-read memoirs

EXCUSE ME, ARE YOU A MODEL?(1990)

By Bonny Hicks

Flame Of The Forest/ Paperback/172 pages/ Major bookstores or e-mail sales@flameoftheforest.com

A frank and fearless coming-of-age story by the late top model, the book made headlines for Hicks' revelations - that she came from a single-parent family, that she dated men and also a woman. Fashion buffs will love it.

THE RESIDENT TOURIST (PARTS 1 TO 6, 2007 TO 2014)

By Troy Chin

DrearyWeary Publications

(Parts 2 to 5), Math Paper Press (Parts 1 and 6)/$14 to $19.90/ Major bookstores

Chin's slice-of-life graphic novels are cutting, amusing and heart-breaking reading.

The ongoing series - he just released Part 6, which takes place in 2011 - is a record of his life after he left a highflying music industry job in the United States to return to Singapore.

PLAYING FOR MALAYA (2012)

By Rebecca Kenneison (2012)

NUS Press/Paperback/276 pages/ $43.27/Books Kinokuniya

Kenneison, a born-and- bred Briton, learnt only after her father's death that he was a Eurasian from Singapore, but had kept this secret all her life because he did not want to face discrimination.

A fascinating portrayal of a family sundered during World War II and reunited in the Noughties.

akshitan@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Oct 21, 2014.
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