Noon at Five O'Clock: The Short Stories of Arthur Yap

Endorsements, Half title, full title, copyright and dedication page

“Arthur Yap’s prose indeed has his hallmark blend of simplicity yet sharpness, and the nonchalance sitting oddly astride a self-consciousness in the storytelling often throws up delightful turns of phrases to surprise the reader. Yet this is hardly the point. One might not read Arthur Yap’s short stories to seek quite the crispness and density of language as in his poetry, for the prose affords more room for insight into the internal logic of human behaviour and a pristine and loving characterisation of a Singapore long left behind us.” — Toh Hsien Min, poet and editor of The Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore “The qualities one admires in his verse shine brightly in his “flash fiction”, too—strikingly modern and unwavering in its commitment to finding out how things behave. He’s the David Attenborough of human psychology: he embraces all with their attendant foibles but won’t hesitate to dissect each and every one like a top surgeon. Amazingly, he achieves all this without a didactic word. Everyone can learn from Arthur Yap’s piquant stories. Such vast wisdom resides in these pared-down lines.” — Yeow Kai Chai, author of Pretend I'm Not Here “The cultural milieu presented in Arthur Yap’s stories, with sympathetic if unillusioned insight, is primarily that of the Chinese diaspora, but one that is capable of rapid evolution and voracious assimilation, leading to a kind of utopian forward-directedness, positing the Singapore that is yet to come, and themselves committed to bringing that new society into being.” — Stephen Clark, Professor of English Literature, University of Tokyo N O O N A T F I V E O ’ C L O C K : T H E C O L L E C T E D S H O R T S T O R I E S O F A R T H U R Y A P N O O N A T F I V E O ’ C L O C K : T H E C O L L E C T E D S H O R T S T O R I E S O F A R T H U R Y A P edited by angus whitehead with a foreword by rajeev patke and an essay by shirley geok-lin lim In memory ofArthur Yap 1943 – 2006 ...