Ministry of Moral Panic

Synopsis

Winner of Best Fiction Title for Singapore Book Awards (2016)
Winner of the Singapore Literature Prize for Fiction (2014)
Selected by The Business Times as a Top 10 Singapore book from (1965–2015)
Shortlisted for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s Internationaler Literaturpreis
Shortlisted for the Frankfurt Book Fair’s LiBeraturpreis
Longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (2014)

Meet an over-the-hill pop yé-yé singer with a faulty heart; two conservative middle- aged women holding hands in the Galápagos, and the proprietor of a Laundromat with a penchant for Cantonese songs of heartbreak. Find out the truth about racial riot fodder-girl Maria Hertogh, now living out her days as a chambermaid in Lake Tahoe; a mirage of the Merlion as a ladyboy working Orchard Towers; and a high- stakes fantasy starring the still-suave lead of the 1990s TV hit serial, The Unbeatables.

Ministry of Moral Panic is an extraordinary collection and the introduction of a revelatory new voice. Heartfelt and sexy, the stories of Amanda Lee Koe encompass a skewed world fraught with prestige anxiety, moral relativism, sexual frankness, and the improbable necessity of human connection. Told in strikingly original prose, these are stories that plough the possibilities of understanding Singapore and her denizens.

About The Author

Amanda Lee Koe was the youngest winner of the Singapore Literature Prize for the story collection Ministry of Moral Panic (Epigram, 2014). It was longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and shortlisted for the Frankfurt Book Fair's LiBeraturpreis and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt's International Literature Prize.

Her novel, Delayed Rays of a Star, was published in 2019 by Doubleday (US) and Bloomsbury (UK). It was a Straits Times #1 Bestseller, a most anticipated title from ELLE, Los Angeles Times, Thrillist, USA Today, and one of NPR's Best Books of The Year.