Stories hold power to open spaces for alternative voices
The Straits Times|November 19, 2024
Two panels on the closing day of the Singapore Writers Festival found unexpected synchronicity in advocating alternative narratives.
Ong Sor Fern Arts Editor
Stories hold power to open spaces for alternative voices

At Ink And Equality: The Role Of Female Empowerment In Modern Literature at Victoria Theatre on Nov 17, writers Cat Bohannon and Sarah Malik connected over women-centred stories.

Australian Malik kicked things off by recalling how her childhood sparked her ambition to be a journalist and later led her to write her 2022 debut memoir Desi Girl: On Feminism, Race, Faith And Belonging. "I grew up in the 1990s in Australia. It was a very white-dominated world.

"I loved books, I loved newspapers and media. Even though I didn't really see myself reflected in that media, I just engaged with it so deeply because I instinctively knew the importance of stories and the importance of narratives."

9/11 was the spark that ignited her first book: "I suddenly saw my identity and who I was reflected back to me in sometimes caricatured, grotesque ways. I realised that the media was very powerful, and I wanted to be part of it, not as its subject, but as the creator, as the person who was making those narratives."

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