Sim Yee Chiang
Encyclopedia
Sim Yee Chiang is a Singapore
an short story
writer, playwright
, and librettist.
Sim was born and raised in Singapore and was educated at Hwa Chong Junior College
. He then moved to California, where he attended Stanford University
.
Sim's writing has primarily been in the field of Singapore gay literature
: his short story Extracts from Fairy Tale, which narrates the coming-of-age of a young gay athlete, appeared in the Singaporean LGBT
-themed short story collection Onewinged (ISBN 978-981-04-4469-3). His literary influences include modernism
, metafiction
, and anti-realism
, as well as the work of Vladimir Nabokov
and Samuel Beckett
.
Like Cyril Wong
, Sim is also involved in opera
, both as a performer and a writer. He has performed as the Vicar of Ploverleigh in The Sorcerer
, and is currently writing a libretto for an opera inspired by the seductress Calypso
in the Odyssey
.
Sim is currently the editor-in-chief of the journal Glosses.
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
an short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
writer, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, and librettist.
Sim was born and raised in Singapore and was educated at Hwa Chong Junior College
Hwa Chong Junior College
Hwa Chong Junior College was a junior college in Singapore offering pre-university education. The college was founded in 1974 and merged with The Chinese High School on 1 January 2005 to form Hwa Chong Institution.-Founding:...
. He then moved to California, where he attended Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
Sim's writing has primarily been in the field of Singapore gay literature
Singapore gay literature
Singapore Gay Literature refers to writing that deals with LGBT themes in a Singapore context. It covers literary works of fiction, such as novels, short stories, plays and poems. It also includes non-fiction works, both scholarly and targeted at the general reader, such as dissertations, journal...
: his short story Extracts from Fairy Tale, which narrates the coming-of-age of a young gay athlete, appeared in the Singaporean LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
-themed short story collection Onewinged (ISBN 978-981-04-4469-3). His literary influences include modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, metafiction
Metafiction
Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
, and anti-realism
Anti-realism
In analytic philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of an objective reality of entities of a certain type or the denial that verification-transcendent statements about a type of entity are either true or false...
, as well as the work of Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
and Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
.
Like Cyril Wong
Cyril Wong
Cyril Wong is the author of nine volumes of poetry and one collection of prose.- Biography:Born in 1977, Cyril Wong attended Saint Patrick's School, Singapore and Temasek Junior College, before pursuing a doctoral degree in English literature from the National University of Singapore...
, Sim is also involved in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, both as a performer and a writer. He has performed as the Vicar of Ploverleigh in The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
, and is currently writing a libretto for an opera inspired by the seductress Calypso
Calypso (mythology)
Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she detained Odysseus for a number of years. She is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas....
in the Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
.
Sim is currently the editor-in-chief of the journal Glosses.