By Yeow Kai Chai

For Vancouver-based novelist-poet-artist Lydia Kwa, returning to Singapore is "like being an inside outsider", adding that "it's a strange, slightly disorienting phenomenon, every time I visit".

Born in Singapore in 1959 and living in her adopted country of Canada since 1980, she has produced an intriguing body of creative works – three novels and two poetry collections – which similarly mine the "inside outsider" approach.

Her first novel, This Place Called Absence (Turnstone, 2000), flits between the past and present, modernity and tradition, using four narrators to tell two stories: one set in 1990s Vancouver and another about two Chinese prostitutes in early 20th-century Singapore. Her latest book, sinuous (Turnstone, 2013), is a long poem spanning 14 years, covering her musings on the nature of trauma, the resilience of the human spirit, and the healing that comes from practices such as meditation and ki aikido.

It is not surprising to find out that she is a clinical psychologist, acutely attuned to humanity's shades of complexities. She is currently working on the prequel to her second novel The Walking Boy, which was set in the eighth century, Tang-era China.

1) What are you reading right now?
I have several things on the go. I am re-reading some old magazines of mine. Right now it's the Winter 2006/2007 issue of COLORS which featured interviews with people living in Beijing at the time. I love this issue because of the amazing candour and raw presence of the interviewees. I am also reading the English translation of Akiko Yosano's poems, Tangled Hair (translated by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda). And I am bracing myself to resume reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I say "bracing" because it is a wonderful yet difficult book, incredible in its psychological insights—the book examines trauma and suffering with courage and in such minute detail. I was halfway into the novel before my trip, and I didn't feel like lugging it with me. So now that I've returned to Vancouver—well, like I said, bracing myself for re-entry.

2) If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
The Wind-Up Bird in Haruki Murakami's novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Just because it was the first of his novels that I read, and loved.

3) What is the greatest misconception about you?
That I am a pushover just because I'm thoughtful.

4) Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Haruki Murakami, because he's so weird and an only child.
Zhuangzi, because he was also weird and slightly insane in the best sense, and didn't care about making it big in the material world.

5) Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
Is that a theological question? :)

Permit me to reply in verse:

Writing as play
Drop off the chattering ego at daycare
Less a chore when
A happy set of accidents

6) What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Boldness of imagination, technical confidence, humility and deference toward one's characters (in fiction), subtlety, and a touch of craziness.

7) What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
Arrogance. Period.

8) Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
No. I am in menopause.

9) Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
am a shit disturber.

10) At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy, or an action thriller to watch, which will you go for, and why?
Some action thriller with a wonderful female protagonist who kicks ass. The reason is obvious, I think (see number 9).

11) What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
Favourite: "Succulent" comes to mind.
Least favourite: "Blame".

12) Write a short-short story in three sentences that include the following three items: the tragically hip, jet lag, oyster omelette.
Jet-lagged, she stumbled across a free live telecast of The Tragically Hip's last concert. Love emanating from the audience was so palpable that it made her tearful, and long for o-chien, the oyster omelette she could no longer eat, without risking getting sick. Why was it that the tastiest morsels were sometimes the deadliest?

13) What object is indispensable to you when you write?
My brain.

14) What is the best time of the day for writing?
Any time is the best time. Whenever I feel the mood coming on, and I can run away from the rest of the world.

15) If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
I'd love to dine with Han Kang, Eka Kurniawan and Anton Chekhov, because I admire their work. I would hope that Anton has some words of wisdom for how to transition through the bardo, and whether language came in handy.

16) As someone who has lived in Singapore and Canada, what insights do you have into the literary scenes in the two countries? And what they can learn from each other?
Oh my, such a huge, sweeping question! I think there are many kinds of literary communities in Canada, far too many, and I don't know much about most. I leave it up to the academics to tackle this question. I certainly couldn't even say what the various communities could learn from each other. Except perhaps to share how we keep sane (or insane) and continue writing.

17) What would you write on your own tombstone?
She stopped worrying about being famous and had fun instead.

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