Other Cities, Other Lives

Chew Kok Chang
Translated from the Chinese by Shelly Bryant

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In Other Cities, Other Lives, travelogues are populated with swindlers and enterprising tour guides, where nothing is as it seems. Closer to home, stories capture husbands, wives and children struggling with upheaval in the family.

Told in the elegant, spare style of a Chinese scholar, Chew’s micro-fiction reflects the voice of his generation, living through a time of immense change in the region. This is the first collection of his writing to be translated into English. 

The Cultural Medallion is Singapore’s highest cultural award, given to those who have achieved artistic excellence in the areas of literature, dance, music, theatre and art. It was instituted in 1979 to recognise individuals whose artistic excellence and commitment to the arts have enriched and made a distinction to Singapore’s arts and cultural landscape. Epigram Books’ Cultural Medallion series seeks to translate the works of Cultural Medallion winners writing in Tamil, Malay and Chinese into English. Matching writers with some of the best translators working in the field today, these books are being made available to an English-language audience for the first time.