Winner of the 2015 Epigram Books Fiction Prize
Winner, Singapore Book Awards 2017 (Best Fiction Title)
Shortlisted for the Popular Readers' Choice Awards 2016 English (Adult) Books category
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During the Christmas holidays in 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggers a tsunami that devastates fourteen countries. Two couples from Singapore are vacationing in Phuket when the tsunami strikes. Alternating between the aftermath of the catastrophe and past events that led these characters to that fateful moment, Now That It’s Over weaves a tapestry of causality and regret, and chronicles the physical and emotional wreckage wrought by natural and manmade disasters.
“This novel has breadth, and at its core is a very interesting exploration of Singaporean Chinese childhoods and adolescences.”
—Philip Holden, editor of Writing Singapore and Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2015 judge
“A heart-stopping elegy to the unrelenting tragedy of time, the trauma of impermanence, set against the backdrop of a tsunami that devastated Thailand's coastlines. O Thiam Chin's characters are tested for their resilience and courage as relationships and self-deceptions are unforgettably wrung to the breaking point.”
—Cyril Wong, author of Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me
O Thiam Chin is the winner of the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize, the richest literary award in Singapore, with a cash prize of S$20,000 and a publishing contract with Epigram Books. He is also the author of five collections of short fiction: Free-Falling Man (2006), Never Been Better (2009), Under The Sun (2010), The Rest Of Your Life and Everything That Comes With It (2011) and Love, Or Something Like Love (2013, shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction).
His short stories have appeared in Mānoa, World Literature Today, The International Literary Quarterly, Asia Literary Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Kyoto Journal, The Jakarta Post, The New Straits Times, Asiatic and Esquire (Singapore). His short fiction was also selected for the first two volumes of The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories anthology series.
O was an honorary fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program in 2010, a recipient of the NAC Young Artist Award in 2012, and has been thrice longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He has appeared frequently at writers festivals in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
