Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

I had just come out of a one-year cancer treatment journey and was craving change in anything and everything in my life: my job, my exercise, what I read.

I had always been a non-fiction person, feeling most at home with frameworks, facts and data that I could plug into my work and teaching.

Fiction?

I felt like I had no use for it.

Then I came across the warmly lit bookshop image on Instagram for what felt like the fifth time that week. I thought, why not? A fiction about a bookshop can’t go too wrong. It was as if I was self-justifying that it was okay to have a “fling” with fiction.

Boy, was I glad that I had that “fling”.

What struck me was how plain the English was. No ornate metaphors, no clever twist of phrase, nothing that Mrs Goh, my Primary 5 English teacher would give a gold star for. And yet, page after page, the simplicity and clarity moved me.

I became convinced that my own book would be fine even if I did not possess the skills to write in flowery language. That eventually gave me the courage to plunge into writing my first book.