August 9, 2019

In the lead up to National Day, The Straits Times spotlights 10 new titles for the month of August relating to Singaporean identity and local life. Associate Professor Gerard Sasges’ (NUS Department of Southeast Asian Studies) latest non-fiction work, Hard at Work: Life in Singapore (NUS Press, 2019), co-edited with Ng Shi Wen, a photographer, entrepreneur and educator who has taught at the National University of Singapore and Singapore’s School of the Arts, was one of the titles featured on the list.

The book records the interior lives of more than 50 Singapore workers, giving voice to jobs often overlooked in society. From the ordinary to the unusual, the book records the everyday experiences of ice cream vendors, baristas, police officers, and funeral directors to academic ghostwriters, temple flower sellers, and Thai disco girl agents.

A historian, educator, and chronicler of everyday life, A/P Sasges and Ng Shi Wen present with vivid detail first-person narratives based on personal interviews. Hard at Work is a testimony to the everyday labour that goes on in Singapore, and a witness to how every job can reveal something interesting if we just look closely enough. With a foreword from NTU sociologist Associate Professor Teo You Yenn, author of the best-selling This is What Inequality Looks Like the book also reminds us of the way inequalities of status and income are felt and internalized in a highly globalized city-state.

Catch the book launch for Hard at Work on 1 November at the National Library by registering here.

Read the full article here.