Synopsis
Most readers will associate the acclaimed mainland Chinese author Wang Anyi and her works with Shanghai. By comparison, her connections with Singapore are less well known. Born in the British colony, Wang Xiaoping, her father, emerged as a promising writer in the pre-war Sinophone Singapore literary scene. In 1991, Wang Anyi travelled southward to Singapore not only as a distinguished guest of literary events, but also as a root-seeking descendant who visits her father’s native land. The trip inspired the author to pronounce the equivalence of islands and continents in her novella Sadness of the Pacific. In what sense can we grasp islands as continents? What special appeal did Singapore hold at that time? This talk engages with Wang Anyi’s writings on the Singapore-Malaysian region, in order to reflect on Singapore’s unique position in the Chinese-speaking world around the 1990s. The retrospective gaze will envision how the island-state can reorient itself as the future host of a cosmopolitan Chinese-Sinophone culture. 

说起中国作家王安忆及其作品和城市的关系，读者必然会想到上海，而她与新加坡的渊源却较少为人所知。她父亲王啸平出生于新加坡，战前已在新华文坛崭露头角。1991年，身为归侨后代的王安忆南来参加文艺活动，也开展了寻根的旅程。那场与岛国的相遇，使作家在小说《伤心太平洋》里将岛屿和大陆等量齐观。可岛屿怎么会是大陆？当年的新加坡究竟具备怎样的感召力？本讲座通过回顾王安忆的新马书写，反思新加坡于1990年代在华人世界里的特殊地位，并展望蕞尔之岛如何能够再以海纳百川的气度，重新成为华人多元文化的主场。

Speaker Biography
CHAN Cheow Thia is Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese-Sinophone literature, Sinophone studies, Southeast Asian studies, and diaspora studies. His monograph, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. His articles are published in journals such as Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, as well as PRISM: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature. He co-edited the special issue of PRISM on “The Worlds of Southeast Asian Chinese Literature.” As a literary translator and editor, his work has appeared in Renditions: A Chinese-English Translation Magazine.

曾昭程，新加坡国立大学中文系助教教授。复旦中文系本科，剑桥大学亚洲与中东研究哲学硕士（汉学专业），耶鲁大学东亚语言与文学系博士。其主要研究兴趣涵盖中国现当代文学研究、华语语系研究（新马文学专项）、离散研究与东南亚研究。其英文专著 Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature将于年底由哥伦比亚大学出版社出版。

Moderator Biography
LIM Fong Wei is a bilingual senior journalist at Lianhe Zaobao. He is also a screenwriter, fiction writer, translator and independent researcher. His short story “The Woman on a Trishaw at Dead Man Alley” has won the 2017 Golden Point Award. He has been awarded the 2018 Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship for his research on Hong Kong writer Liu Yichang’s sojourn in Malaya. His essays of Eileen Chang’s mother’s life in Malaya and UK has met with good critical reception. His translation of Liu Yichang's Malayan stories will be published in Hong Kong's Renditions.

林方伟是《联合早报》资深记者，曾为电影《想入飞飞》编剧、写小说、翻译和研究文学。小说《死人街三轮车上的小姐》获2017年新加坡金笔奖。近年研究刘以鬯和张爱玲。发表张爱玲母亲（黄逸梵）与好友（炎樱）的一系列研究文章在华文文坛备受瞩目。英译刘以鬯的南洋小说刊登香港《译丛》。