From the author of Never Been Better and Free-Falling Man comes a new collection of flash fiction that brings to life a world of secrets, joy, grief and longing that lie beneath the ordinary and mundane. Under the Sun offers unflinching snapshots of everyday life, encapsulating the gritty and real, the subtle and extreme in fifty stories that surprise, reveal and evoke the strange and familiar, whether on the fringes or in the mainstream. From murders to mysterious disappearances, from distorted childhood memories to unfulfilled desires, from flights of fantasy to brutal ruptures of reality, Under the Sun delivers more of O Thiam Chin's keen and honest observations of human flaws and foibles, and imbues the fleeting and revelatory moments of life with mystery and unembellished truths.
Author
O Thiam Chin is the winner of the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015 for his first novel, Now That It's Over, and his second novel, Fox Fire Girl, was shortlisted for the 2016 EBFP; both novels are published by Epigram Books. He is also the author of five collections of short fiction: Free-Falling Man (2006), Never Been Better (2009), Under The Sun (2010), The Rest Of Your Life and Everything That Comes With It (2011) and Love, Or Something Like Love (2013). Love, Or Something Like Love was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction, and Never Been Better and Under The Sun were included in the top ten fiction books in the POPULAR Readers’ Choice Awards in Malaysia. His short stories have appeared in Mānoa, World Literature Today, The International Literary Quarterly, Asia Literary Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Kyoto Journal, The Jakarta Post, The New Straits Times, Asiatic and Esquire (Singapore). His short fiction was also selected for the first two volumes of The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories anthology series. O was an honorary fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program in 2010, a recipient of the NAC Young Artist Award in 2012, and has been thrice longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He has appeared frequently at writers festivals in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
