Dakota

"I have always considered Dakota my hometown, as if this would highlight the haste of time. The residential community built by the Lin Youfu government was named after a crashed Douglas plane. The old buildings with red tiles and brick walls, the playground with pigeons and floral patterns, and the limestone ground with leaves blown by the breeze, are where my childhood was formed, sometimes lively and sometimes lonely. Dakota is now unrecognizable, half converted into luxury apartments, and the other half is almost razed to the ground. The memories and longings collected in this book, as well as the text and illustrations, are more indulgent and profound than nostalgia, like homesickness, but happy. At least I can still hide between the lines, follow the straight lines of the writing, and go back in time in the curves." - Huang Kaide

Award-winning local author Wong Hoi-te self-published Dakota in 2018, which sold out in 2020 and went out of print. That same year, he was awarded the 2020 Singapore Literary Prize (Non-fiction). In April of this year, City Books simultaneously published the English translation of Dakota, titled "Dakota," and a new edition of the book, adding six previously unpublished works.

This book, a nostalgic collection of 25 childhood essays and illustrations, offers a personal perspective, a reflection of collective memory, and a testament to Singapore's history and the transformation of its land. Born and raised in Dakota in the 1970s, the author, facing demolition and redevelopment in this historic community, wishes to capture the details of her life through writing, reflecting on the stories of place and time with a melancholic yet innocent eye.

Huang Kaide

Currently a part-time lecturer at NTU Singapore, he primarily teaches creative writing. A graduate of the National University of Singapore with a master's degree, he previously worked as a newspaper journalist for seven years, frequently contributing columns to local newspapers and magazines. In 2015, he became Writer-in-Residence at NTU's Department of Chinese Language and Literature. He won the Singapore Literature Award (fiction and non-fiction) in 2020 and 2022. His published works include: "Jump Until I Die" (collection of essays, 1995), "Revised Edition" (poetry collection, 1996), "Age Chronicle" (essays and short stories, 2004), "Dark and Bright" (cultural criticism, 2015), "Three or Four Lines" (semi-poetry collection, 2016), "Dakota" (local prose writing, 2018), "Leopard Transformation" (short story collection, 2019), "Three or Four Lines 2" (semi-poetry collection, 2021), "Little Things" (essay and photography collection, 2021), and "If Love Is a Haunted House" (poetry collection, 2023).