Heartland (Shiau novel)

Heartland is a novel by Daren Shiau, first published by SNP Editions in 1999, and republished by Ethos Books in 2002.^[1] The book won the 1998 Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award and is Shiau's debut novel. An existential work, it deals with the paradox of rootedness and rootlessness of Singaporeans born after the Japanese Occupation. ^[2] The book is now selected as a set text for GCE 'O' and 'N' levels.^[3]

In 2015, Heartland was selected by The Business Times as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965–2015, alongside titles by Arthur Yap, Goh Poh Seng, Philip Jeyaretnam and Amanda Lee Koe.^[4]

Plot introduction

The narrative follows the coming-of-age story of Wing Seng, a young ethnic Chinese at the threshold of adulthood. The novel starts when he is eighteen years old, in his second year of his junior college and facing enlistment into National Service. Wing Seng has two good friends in junior college: Sham, an Indian, and Audrey, a female friend. He starts a relationship with schoolmate and environmentalist, Chloe, but finds her upper-middle-class background clashes with his more modest one.

Eventually he is enlisted and undergoes the gruelling three-month Basic Military Training at Pulau Tekong. He makes friend with Yong, a lower middle-class boy who speaks only Singlish, and befriends his younger sister May Ling. Wing also learns harsh truths about his own family along the way.

Footnotes