c u lt u r a l m e d a l l i o n 2 0 2 3
Meir a Chand
The power and poetry of words has drawn novelist Meira Chand (b. 1942) from an early age. Born in London to a Swiss mother and Indian father, she has a unique and culturally fragmented background compounded by an itinerant life, that has shaped her work. After living at length in Japan, then India, she relocated to Singapore in 1997 and became a Singapore citizen in 2011. Writing, she says, is the only way she can pin down the culturally diverse worlds around her and examine her relationship to them, and to the known and the unknown worlds we carry within us. She sees her writing as a journey into the mystery that resides at the centre of us all, and the search for meaning in our lives. Her work explores the position of the outsider, with the corresponding themes of spiritual isolation, the search for identity and belonging, and the conflict of cultures.
Meira with her family in Japan, circa 1980. Photo courtesy of Meira Chand
Meira has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Western Australia and has written nine novels and a collection of short stories. Her books are internationally acclaimed, with three longlistings for the prestigious Booker Prize. ‘A Different Sky’ (2010) was a Book of the Month for the UK bookstore chain, Waterstones, and on Oprah Winfrey’s recommended reading list. In 1991, her novel ‘House of the Sun’ was adapted for the stage in London, starring Meera Sayal. It was the first all-Asian play with an all-Asian cast and was Voted Critic’s Choice by Time Out. More recently, in Singapore, she wrote the story from which the successful production, ‘LKY: The Musical’, was developed. A regular column she wrote for The Straits Times was widely read. Meira’s life and work straddle cultures and continents. The outsiderinsider view of the many worlds depicted in her books can be said to epitomise our modern life and the immigrant’s search for place and acceptance. Singapore is an accidental country, founded originally largely by immigrants, and in its disparate multicultural parts, she finds a sense of inclusion she has not met before. For the first time her cultural fragmentation places her not at the edge of society, but at the centre of a greater whole, and she feels she has come home.
Meir a Ch a nd
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