What Gives Us Our Names

Synopsis

He’d gotten the idea from a book, not unlike the one you last read and loved, whose lurid covers you have already forgotten. For a canvas, he used not his own skin but his very life, spending his days as if he were made up of the most telling bits of other people. To do this, he learned to watch quietly and look deeply, past the busy surfaces until he could discern the colours beneath, the ones that did not change. One by one he would name them as he wove them into his heart in the deep of night. He touched you once, borrowing pieces of your story in passing. They are here still, in case you wish to look.

About The Author

Alvin Pang was named 2005 Young Artist of the Year (Literature) by the National Arts Council, Singapore. His poetry collections, Testing The Silence (1997) and City of Rain (2003) were both listed in the Straits Times’ Top Ten Books of the Year. Pang was a founding director ofThe Literary Centre (Singapore) and Wordfeast 2004, Singapore’s first international poetry festival.