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A woman fleeing her previous existence meets a fellow Singaporean on an overnight train in Norway. A foreign worker is decapitated in an HDB building site accident. A Singaporean wife must navigate Beijing as her British husband awaits a heart transplant. And in different corners of the world, Singaporeans and exiles mark National Day in their own ways. Jeremy Tiang’s debut collection weaves together the lives of its characters across the world—from Switzerland, Norway, Germany, China, Canada, Thailand, New York City and back to Singapore. These wry, unsettling stories ask how we decide where we belong, and what happens to those who don’t.
Praise for It Never Rains on National Day
Shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize
“Tiang moves across social issues, artistic concerns, and domestic problems with a deft and subtle hand throughout.” —Business Times
"Moving beyond Singapore's official narrative, Tiang's It Never Rains on National Day weaves together the diversity of the nation, through his masterful portrayal of his characters' psyches.” —Cha Journal
“An elegant and engaging collection.” —QLRS
“Essential reading.” —Straits Times
Praise for State of Emergency
Shortlisted for the NUS Singapore History Prize 2021
Winner of the Singapore Literature Prize 2018, Fiction
Shortlisted for the Singapore Book Awards 2018, Best Fiction Title
Finalist for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2016
“Masterfully written. Tiang has that rare talent for capturing some of the more unpleasant, eminently relatable aspects of Singapore society—from pious bureaucrats to sadistic authority figures—without cloying his art with sentimentalism or bitterness. State of Emergency is a compelling, important piece of work from one of Singapore’s finest living authors.” —The Straits Times
“Each of State of Emergency’s six sections, focusing on one character and period at a time, is gripping and powerfully emotive. All Tiang’s characters are well-realised, vulnerable, conflicted and forced to bear the burden of guilt for things which are beyond their control. The scars left on the extended Low family, split apart in so many ways and denied the chance to live normally together, mirror the scars etched deeply into a nation.” —The Herald
“Informed by years of painstaking research and brought to life with naturalistic, context-sensitive dialogue, Tiang’s characters speak not only with the authority, but also the tenderness, of truth. State of Emergency speaks as much to a world rocked by division and inequality as a country grappling with its own biography. It persuades us that there is always another layer to the truth, that one’s security and prosperity is ever, for another, a perpetual and bruising state of emergency.”—Asian Review of Books
“State of Emergency boldly takes on periods in Singapore’s history that many people would prefer not to face. To what degree citizens are culpable in what they have done and what they have failed to do at the worst moments of their nation’s history: this is the vital and uneasy question the novel impresses upon its readers.” —Singapore Unbound
“Epic in scope, yet so intimate in its depiction of the characters. Tiang is a brilliant writer.” —KENNY CHAN, Chief Judge, Singapore Literature Prize 2018
“A superbly structured piece of work. The sweep of the dramatic narrative is impressive, with just the right dose of intrigue and mystery.” —HARESH SHARMA, Resident Playwright, The Necessary Stage