Kappa Quartet (10th Anniversary Edition) (Preorder)

“Located somewhere between the shattered filmic worlds of David Lynch and Satoshi Kon's apocalyptic anime, Yam's narrative hypnotises us into questioning our reality in ways that are terrifying, revelatory and fundamentally profound.”
—Cyril Wong, award-winning author of Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me

“Irreal and intricate, Daryl Yam's riveting debut teases the perimeters of what a Singaporean novel can be.”
—Amanda Lee Koe, award-winning author of Ministry of Moral Panic

“Kappa Quartet builds on the promise of Daryl Yam's short stories, and confirms that he is an author to watch. And read!”
—David Peace, Granta Best Young British Novelist and author of Tokyo Year Zero

“The stories connect in an intricate web of a plot that results in an incredibly satisfying ending. From a ryokan hotel in Yamanashi to a mysterious bookstore in Nakameguro and as far away as the humid cityscape of Singapore, different jazz-loving kappa infiltrate lives for better and for worse in this selection of stories that fit together like a puzzle.”
—Time Out Tokyo

“Atmospheric, surreal and masterfully told through an off-kilter cast of characters lost and lonely, this exciting new read comes from the longlist of the 2015 Epigram Books Fiction Prize.”
—The Straits Times

“Set in present-day Singapore and Japan, Yam’s terrific debut novel tells a strange and shivery tale of ordinary people living side by side with kappas… Yam is one to watch.”
—The Business Times

“Yam breaks new ground in Singaporean writing with his exploration of what it means to live in this weary world, to be human, to possess (or not possess) a soul. Weaving the stories of his characters into an intricate mosaic of love and yearning and heartache and loss and death and everything else intrinsically meaningful, Kappa Quartet is a shimmering and poignant novel, an immensely sympathetic and humane exploration of our existential condition.”
—Quarterly Literary Review Singapore

Daryl Qilin Yam (b. 1991) is a writer, editor and arts organiser from Singapore. The author of the novels Kappa Quartet (2016) and Lovelier, Lonelier (2021), the novella Shantih Shantih Shantih (2021), and the bestselling short story collection Be Your Own Bae (2024), his work has been nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize and the SBPA’s Singapore Book Awards. He co-founded the literary charity Sing Lit Station, where he presently serves as the managing editor of its publishing arm AFTERIMAGE.

In 2025, he was bestowed the Young Artist Award, Singapore’s highest award for arts practitioners aged 35 and below. His alma mater, Nanyang Technological University, further bequeathed him with the 2024 SoH Patron of Heritage and the Arts Award and the 2025 Nanyang Outstanding Young Alumni Award for his contributions to culture. With appearances in periodicals and publications such as the Berlin Quarterly, the Sewanee Review, The Straits Times and The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singapore Short Stories anthology series, his writing has been described as “[breaking] new ground in Singaporean writing” (QLRS) and “[marking] a seismic shift in the landscape of contemporary Singaporean literature” (Cha: An Asian Literary Journal).