From Red Scare to Capitalist Showcase: Working-Class Literature from Singapore

Abstract

In Singapore, discourse on working-class culture, especially working-class literature, is mostly scant. This paper aims to begin constructing such a discourse by analysing from a historical perspective three working-class writers. By discussing Chong Han (1945- ), Tan Kok Seng (1939- ) and Md Sharif Uddin (1978- ) and their works, I reflect on the particular historical, social-political and aesthetic features that make each writer unique and relevant at different stages in Singaporean history. I will delineate a rudimentary historical overview of working-class literature in Singapore, stressing the different possibilities and limits under various "production modes". By doing so, I hope to show the distinctive predicaments of working-class literature and various issues in today's scholarship on working-class literature.