Illustration by Cameron Lee
Year: First-year!
Major/College: CC, most likely Comparative Literature & Society
Where are you from?
Singapore. I don't appreciate hearing anything about how the country is clean, beautiful or efficient. The phrase 'Disneyland with the death penalty' also should be outlawed.
What do you love about Quarto?
Quarto feels more and more like a home to me. I've made so many good friends in this place, with interests and sensibilities that mirror and challenge my own. I also love listening to people express their thoughts on the pieces we read; I learn a lot from the way people see and understand texts and art. Sometimes it's so eloquently articulated that I wish we could record people talking and publish their voices.
What inspires you to do the work we do?
I think I'm thrilled by the thought that in selecting pieces for publication, we play a role in expanding people's ideas of what good writing can look like! Sometimes I feel saddened when people cite works by super traditional/canonical white male writers as their favorite books. I mean, ok, but have you read anything else? I also strongly believe in literature and storytelling as occupying an important intersection between the political and the intimate; it's simultaneously a channel of self-articulation, but also always inhabits a space in relation to a pre-existing hierarchy of voices. Quarto provides, I think, an inclusive platform for the creative expression of a diverse range of perspectives and experiences.
Do you have any pets?
Unfortunately not, but I'm still harboring dreams of having a cat one day, or a marmoset—like the one that kept the Bloomsbury Set company.
Where can we find you in your free time (a lazy Monday afternoon, a cozy Sunday morning)?
Running in a park, doing yoga, curled up with a good book, or seeking out new corners to have deep conversations with a friend!
What else are you involved in/what are your other interests?
I love writing, journaling, baking, making art, watching films, thinking about different forms. I hope to find more spaces to build community on campus and take part in activist/social justice causes in my remaining time here!
Favorite author/artist/work?
Always a challenging question! Some books that absolutely enraptured me recently: Tender by Sofia Samatar, A Greater Music by Bae Suah, A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson, Who Killed My Father by Edouard Louis. My desert island book is probably Lila by Marilynne Robinson. Virginia Woolf's work was too formative for me to be too critical of her aesthetics, even though I now recognize more clearly that her politics were problematic and exclusionary.
What else should we know about you?
I'm a big fan of friendship. We don't talk enough about it.