Glass cathedral & Peculiar Chris

Glass cathedral

Andrew Koh
Commendation award winner 1994 Singapore Literature Prize


The Singapore Literature Prize 1994:


Fiction
Merit, Crossing Distance by Tan Mei Ching 
Merit, Eston by Stella Kon
Commendation, Wives, Lovers and Other Women by David Leo 
Commendation, Feel by Denyse Tessensohn 
Commendation, Glass Cathedral by Andrew Koh


card By: HANDSOME DEVIL












Peculiar Chris

Authored byJohann S. Lee, it was published in Singapore by Cannon International in 1992.

The book recounts the life and loves of Chris and his partner Samuel. It is also noteworthy for documenting how the military bureaucracy reacts when a soldier comes out in Singapore.

The book was translated into Italian in 1997, under the shortened title of 'Chris'.

Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa'at adapted the novel into the play Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol. 3. It was staged by W!LD RICE, a Singapore theatre company, from 11 to 29 July 2007.

Taking as its object of study Johann S. Lee's Peculiar Chris (1992) and Andrew Koh'sGlass Cathedral (1995), this essay considers the ways in which the relationship between queer identities and (trans)nationalism is construed in two Singapore “coming out” novels. How does their status as writing emerging from a particular postcolonial urban site inflect the significance of their literary-stylistic choices? What kinds of affiliations are affirmed, what ties are disavowed? While the thematization of homosexuality in the Singapore context does not automatically make such texts “subversive”, gay writing brings sharply into focus the problematics arising from a confluence of nationalist and global discourses–in this case, globalized notions of a transnational gay identity originating largely from the West. Drawing on and explicitly announcing their participation in a larger body of gay protest literature, these texts offer a valuable opportunity for reflecting on how transnationalism might enable queer subjects to challenge and revise nationally endorsed models of masculinity; at the same time, the extent to which their efforts to articulate a queer identity might compromise their “Singaporeanness” is considered.

Paul Yeoh

Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA