By Yeow Kai Chai

For two decades, Ethos Books is among a handful of Singaporean publishers credited for nurturing homegrown writers and cultivating a nascent but certainly growing literary scene.

In the past couple of years, Ng Kah Gay has taken over day-to-day operations of the publishing house from founder-publisher Fong Hoe Fang. A graduate from the University of Leeds studying English Language and Literature, Ng did a two-month stint at farming collective Bollywood Veggies before Ethos Books and after Victoria Junior College where he taught General Paper, English literature, and Language Arts for a total of eight years.

As associate publisher at Ethos, Ng is steering a young and dynamic crew, streamlining production and focusing their energies on new initiatives. Their efforts are paying off: This year, five of their titles are in the shortlist for the biennial Singapore Literature Prize: namely, three poetry collections, Phedra by Euginia Tan; Bitter Punch by Loh Guan Liang; and Giving Ground by Theophilus Kwek; and two creative non-fiction books, 17A Keong Saik Road by Charmaine Leung; and The Magic Circle by Charmaine Chan.

Top of its 2018 agenda is the launch of orbit, a new series as part of Ethos's 21st anniversary celebration. Labelled 'orbit by ethos books', it aims to launch fresh and different works of any genre that may not meet the conventions of a full-length work in breadth, but whose concerns orbit the heart of being and can stand as they are. Packaged in a handy, physical format, the books in this series seek to travel, and are read in the span of a train ride.

Together with Fong, Ng is also working on ahope, a publishing platform for independent authors and publishers. They envision the publication of a bestseller by ahope in the year 2020.

1) What are you reading right now?
Wena Poon's The Adventures of Snow Fox and Sword Girl, the first volume of her Hoshimaruhon trilogy. It's got a whizzbang of a plot, with characters and motifs that are improvisations of Chinese wuxia, Japanese folklore, and popular culture. The pacing is terrific: her story reads like a movie, perfect for unclenching my mind at the end of a day's slog.

2) If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
A wandering type – say the speaker in the Old English poem 'The Seafarer', or the exile Lin Chong in Water Margin – minus the fatalism. It'll be a character from a yet-to-be-written Singapore work with whom I can most closely identify.

3) What is the greatest misconception about you?
That I am a workaholic. I have a personal mobility device that travels along hidden folds in time. Also, time is ninja and does double-duty for me – when I am enjoying literature I am also working. Or the other way round.

4) Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Bill Watterson, the author of Calvin and Hobbes, announced his retirement when I was in secondary school. That left a deep mark on me. He spoke through his Tenth Anniversary Book against the pressures of syndication, and showed how artists might quit the world to maintain the integrity of their creative soul: unfailingly, this Chinese term 情操 (qing2 cao1) comes to mind. I think he is still alive; he is so reclusive, and that is also part of the point he's made on me.

I first encountered Anonymous in Touched with Fire, a poetry anthology with wild poems like "Cold in the earth" by Emily Brontë. But there was something about Anonymous – prolific, irrecoverable and extant – that exerted an elusory hold.

5) Name one classic novel in either the Western or Asian literary canon you wish you had published and tell us why.
The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Gutted that it took a UK publisher (MacLehose Press) and a European translator (Anna Holmwood) to translate into English what was standard fare for so many of my peers.

6) Name one contemporary Singaporean title you wish you had published and tell us why.
Sometimes, I come into possession of this worldview that things should remain as they are: the titles that we could have published might not have happened if they came to us. I commit my trust to the writers, the market, and natural selection.

7) What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Steadfastness and openness in equal measure. This calls for the capacity to harbour contradiction.

8) What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
Complacency. Genius and reputation is no excuse for shoddy work.

9) If you could only give a piece of advice to an aspiring writer, what would it be?
None. Why deprive an aspiring writer of the pain of experience and the pleasure of uncertainty?

10) Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
bagged 14 packs of durians over five mornings in July (2018).

11) At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy or an action thriller to watch, which would you go for?
At this moment, I would like to watch an arthouse film that pretends to be none of the above.

12) If (or when) you write a book, what would it be?
A collection of poems or personal essays.

13) What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
Favourite: "still."
Least favourite: "actually" (especially when I use it unconscionably or unconsciously when speaking).

14) What is the one thing you would like to change most about the Singaporean literary scene?
Create more categories and formats that allow writers to exemplify their quality, and for readers to enjoy. For example, can we have more appreciation for humour?

15) As a publisher, you must be faced with a pile of manuscripts every day. What makes a manuscript appeal to you? What are the do's and don'ts when it comes to submissions?
An author's voice when it emanates from inner being. I think cri de coeur or 心声(xin1 sheng1) captures a sense of it, but I imagine it to be the fullest expression of life as apprehended by the author.

Do's and don'ts? Have a look at this

16) If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Chaucer, Scheherazade, and Sherlock Holmes. Especially if everyone can understand one another – there will be no end to the storytelling, the stories behind the stories, with the detective snuffing out the fun with some devastating logic. We could also just enjoy pub grub, alongside dancing and some spirited violin – swap roles and make a ruckus till the final end.

17) What would you write on your own tombstone?

three years on, this spring
lives in quiet observance –
still growing, silence.

_____