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Corridor: 12 Short Stories
by
Corridor is a collection of short stories all set in present-day Singapore. With unsentimental clarity and heartbreaking honesty, Alfian Sa'at writes about HDB dwellers — students, housewives and factory workers, whose lives begin to unravel once they discover that happiness is a fragile thing in a country obsessed with progress and success.
The characters in each story fin ...more
The characters in each story fin ...more
Paperback, 154 pages
Published
by Raffles
(first published January 1st 2015)
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30)
The writing made me cringe hundreds of times... What is with so many local Singaporean writers who over-describe, over-explain and over-symbolize their story??? Most of them confused me so much in an annoying way :/ I can't wait to see how my professor discusses this collection in class...
If you can ever find this--buy it! And send it to me! Singapore author, short stories. best writer in Singapore essentially. this book is a collection of short stories about an array of "uniquely Singaporean" people. tragic stories, humanly flawed characters. exposes the real issues of Singapore culture. I know no one reading this review probably *cares* about Singapore like I do...but it is fascinating nonetheless.
9.11.17 “12 corridors” by Alfian Sa’at offers a kaleidoscopic palimpsest of Singaporean characters in the 90s. The stories are wistful and imaginative. While the characters are strongly rooted in realism, their inner worlds are represented with much colour, pathos and at times, eccentric finesse. The themes could border beyond the readers’ comfort zones at times, but when viewed under the lens of the struggles of an individual against societal expectations, empathy for the characters are earned
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I love "Duel", "Video", "Umbrella" and "Corridor"... Sa'at poetically captures the Singaporean landscape via banal imagery which anyone can relate to. What strikes me most is the clarity with which he conveys the subtle nuances of every 'you and i' in beautiful short descriptions. it's like he could have been reading between the lines of your diary!
Short stories of modern-day working-class Singaporeans, often written in pidgin slang. The best were the ones featuring young Gay people. Clear, crisp writing, the endings were usually downbeat and sad.
Essential. Beats Catherine Lim's collections hollow.
I think it is difficult to write about happiness and hurt without being disparaging, but Alfian Sa'at does it well. I like that he put careful thought into the kind of symbols and motifs that each story was woven around, and each narrative was both meaningful and relevant.
It was okay for me. Some chapters that I really enjoyed were 'Video', ' Umbrella' and 'Bugis'.
This is my second collection of short stories book, my first being Revenge by Yoko Ogawa. The stories were a hit and miss for me, some were an interesting peek into a Singaporean's life while others felt forced, as if they were there just the sake for controversy/shock factor.
The one thing I did enjoy about this book in general is the rawness in which the characters are written, they each have a unique voice. I really enjoyed the fact that some of them spoke improper English, thus having charac ...more
The one thing I did enjoy about this book in general is the rawness in which the characters are written, they each have a unique voice. I really enjoyed the fact that some of them spoke improper English, thus having charac ...more
These stories were certainly culturally Singaporean. The imagery and slang were somehow simultaneously nostalgic and other-worldly. As a Singaporean, I understood the Singlish with ease and was struck with nostalgia at the nods to everyday scenery and history. At the same time, the stories seem to weave a fantasy. It made me question if the country in these stories were really the country I'm living in. Without beautifying Singapore, the author incited a new appreciation for my country.
Controve ...more
Controve ...more
Really love all the imageries Alfian used. All of them so familiar, so close to heart. There were quite a number of very fun similes as well.
In the stories, focus on the process of characterisation, and the process of storytelling. One might find the ending of the stories a little bleak, and normal, but that is not the case for me. Because of the effective characterisation, the ending felt many more times pronounced. Each of the stories tells us (kind of like the moral of the story), that everyo ...more
In the stories, focus on the process of characterisation, and the process of storytelling. One might find the ending of the stories a little bleak, and normal, but that is not the case for me. Because of the effective characterisation, the ending felt many more times pronounced. Each of the stories tells us (kind of like the moral of the story), that everyo ...more
Snapshots of ordinary lives. I didn't read it like I would read most books though. It was as though I was just taking a glimpse and not really finding the literary elements and analysing them.
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