Stories hold power to open spaces for alternative voices

Two panels on the closing day of the Singapore Writers Festival found unexpected synchronicity in advocating alternative narratives.

- Ong Sor Fern Arts Editor

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."