From The Belly Of The Carp: Dramatic Monologues From The Singapore River (New Edition with DVD)
| Author(s) | Roger Jenkins |
| ISBN10 | 9810728611 |
| ISBN13 | 9789810728618 |
| Format | Paperback |
| Pages | 131 |
| Year Publish | 1995 |
Synopsis
MINIMUM ORDER: 10 Copies
1995 SINGAPORE LITERATURE PRIZE Winning Book
If ever book was suited to celebrating Singapore’s 50th Anniversary, From The Belly Of The Carp is it!
NEW EDITION comes with a DVD of the author reading/performing 27 of the character monologues.
Each character in From The Belly Of The Carp is associated with the Singapore River from Raffles to the present. Coolies, boat-builders, rickshaw-pullers and punkah-wallahs gradually become businessmen, bar-owners, gardeners and tourists as times change.
Some characters are famous, but most are the ordinary men and women who loved and laboured to make Singapore what it is. But history usually deals with famous people – politicians, generals, kings. I wanted to concentrate on the ordinary men and women (not that anyone can be described as ordinary!) whose efforts and experience, dreams and determination, have made this country what it is.
I wanted to give these anonymous people a voice and let them share with you what it meant to be living and loving, working and worrying, winning and losing by the banks of the Singapore River.
The poems in From The Belly Of The Carpwere written to be staged, or at least spoken aloud. Each one is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker tells us something about their life. Finding a distinct way for each person to speak was one of the challenges of writing the book. For this reason, I tried to avoid adopting too ‘poetic’ a voice; this may be a strength or weakness, according to your taste.
"Chaucerian at its best. Its world is marvellously peopled. Its vitality and vigour are celebratory…. The book’s idiom is unmistakably Singaporean. "
(Asad Latif, Straits Times 19/10/96)
From The Belly Of The Carp lends itself to dramatisation! The GlowersSenior Drama Group, based at Kampong Glam CC, staged a marvellous version (in June 2014) incorporating a lot of dialects, which was highly appropriate, given their focus on the first part of the book dealing with the flood of migrants in the nineteenth century.
