Singapore writing can sell. Publishers in the United States, Australia, China and India are picking up works by home- grown writers, ranging from epic fantasy novels to detective stories to illustrated children’s books.
Playwright Ovidia Yu, 51, has sold a mystery starring a Peranakan sleuth to New York publisher William Morrow, a division of publishing giant HarperCollins. Tentatively titled Aunty Lee’s Delights, it will be published next year.
Her 1989 Singapore detective novel, Miss Moorthy Investigates, will be re- published later this year by India’s Westland group.
Dr Krishna Udayasankar, 34, a business lecturer at the Nanyang Technological University and a Singapore permanent resident, signed a three-book deal last month with Hachette India. Govinda, the first volume of The Aryavarta Chronicles, a historical epic based on the life of Hindu hero Krishna, will be published later this year.
In the genre of children’s fiction, Singapore-based journalist Grant Clark, 46, has sold the first two books in his Monkey Magic series to Can Of Worms in the United Kingdom and Hachette India.
Established writer Adeline Foo, 41, sold e-book rights last month for her bestselling Diary Of Amos Lee series to China. Published by Hachette in India, they have been acquired for translation by Lentera Hati in Indonesia.
