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Two figures sit in a car, waiting to commit a crime. A young girl steals her grandmother's jade bracelet. A Malay man collects the blonde hair of a British teenager he is transfixed with, and a young woman feeds human blood to a frangipani tree. There's right and wrong in this world. Or is there? This collection of fourteen stories explores the grey and amoral lives of ordinary - and not so ordinary - Malaysians and Singaporeans looking to carve their place in the world. Shifting between the dark hills of Penang island to the lonely coasts of Singapore and the cramped corners of Kuala Lumpur and Manchester, Two Figures in a Car is coloured with petty crimes, small ambitions and fantastical delusions.
A deity laments her lost loves. A pickpocket steals more than just money. A young man wrestles with the colour of the homes he builds. In Home Groan, we take a deep look at Penang. From idyllic beaches to dangerous jungle, reflections on the past to current issues, island living to mainland life, we explore our beloved home state in both prose and poetry, spinning tall tales and telling it as it is. This is your Penang. This is your home. Come groan with us.
A simple spice can open up meditations on love and life. In food, we find connection to one another, like a homesick student searching for the perfect cup of teh tarik. Yet, paradoxically, food is a polarizer, like a Muslim convert craving a pork bun. From tracing the origins of our hawker food to a love letter for Ipoh told in local favourites, these works are an eclectic mix of the Malaysian obsession with food. For all our differences, Malaysians find commonality in one thing: we want you to be well-fed. Savour these small packages of good writing, covering a wide array of foods to please every palate, from laksa and sambal telur belimbing to french fries and Bru coffee. Come for the carbs. Stay for the whole menu. Featuring work by award-winning author Elaine Chiew, DK Dutt Memorial Award founder Dipika Mukherjee, and celebrated professor and poet Dr Malachi Edwin Vethamani.
What does it really mean to sustain something from the past, to keep it alive in the present? NutMag 7 explores what Inheritance really means—in languages and names, traumas and dreams, rituals and inclinations—always grappling with the past while groping for the future.
When Malaysians talk about "harmony", most of the time they're referring to racial (and religious) harmony. Yet in this collection of 10 (plus 2!) works, we also explore the vast expanse of what harmony is: from being at peace with oneself, familial relations, and the cyclical nature of life. From office melodrama and musings at the laundromat to imaginative settings of fantasy, mythology and dystopia, our writers show us that harmony takes many forms. NutMag 8: Harmony also hosts the Muara Writing Prize winners for English and Bahasa Malaysia, organised with the George Town Literary Festival 2024.
The cool sea breeze, pounding waves, sweat and sand... Neon lights, narrow alleyways, driving beats... Slow and steady, snarling traffic, patience and impatience... Islands are microcosms and macrocosms, larger than life and yet smaller than you think. Whether real, fictional, or metaphorical, our third edition of NutMag is all about islands. This epub version contains 9 of the 10 original stories & poems. To purchase the original print copy with all the stories, contact Working Desk Publishing.
The days blend together as you hole up at home for the nth week running. Who knows what the next pandemic update will bring? Who knows when we'll meet another living person? Or how? NutMag 5: Lost channels all our pandemic feelings, exploring our fragile grip on reality, the disconnect we feel with others as we quarantine and self-isolate, and grapples with the presence of death and loss.
Mira Abdullah’s goal in life is to become the first female Menteri Jurusihir of Tanjong. To do that, she has to finish a four-year degree in Inventive Design Magics, top her class to become Jurusihir Bestari, and win the five-year apprenticeship to the menteri. Simple, right? By the end of the first year, Mira knows that there are only two strong contenders in her cohort: her and Zeid. But she also finds herself being told that girls are not welcome in the exclusive Inventive Design Magics Degree. Mira just wants to prove herself capable. Even if she has to pretend to be someone else to do it.
The past two years have been rather bleak. While things have been settling down and returning to some sort of (new) normalcy, we're not totally out of the woods --yet-- things cannot be bad all of the time. It's our hopes for the future that help us push through tough times. NutMag 6 brings you 10 short stories, poems and essays crafted around the theme of hope, a counterpoint to our pandemic feels in NutMag 5: Lost.
What does it mean to love and be loved in Singapore? Singapore Love Stories is a vibrant collection of seventeen stories that delves into the diverse love lives of Singapore’s eclectic mix of inhabitants. From the HDB heartlander to the Sentosa millionaire, the privileged expatriate to the migrant worker, the accidental tourist to the reluctant citizen, the characters in this anthology reveal an array of perspectives of love found in the island city-state. Leading Singaporean and Singapore-based writers explore the best and worst of the human condition called love, including grief, duplicity and revenge, self-love, filial love, homesickness and tragic past relationships. Collectively, the stories in this anthology reveal the many ways in which love can be both a salve and a wound in life. Featuring stories by Audrey Chin, Heather Higgins, Elaine Chiew, Damyanti Biswas, Jon Gresham, Verena Tay, Shola Olowu-Asante, Clarissa N. Goenawan, Raelee Chapman, Wan Phing Lim, Kane Wheatley-Holder, Vanessa Deza Hangad, Jing-Jing Lee, Alice Clark-Platts, Melanie Lee, Marion Kleinschmidt and S. Mickey Lin.