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Here are some home-grown titles that will be published in 2026

- Clement Yong Correspondent

The first book to be released in 2026 is a surprising candidate: the English translation of Chinese-language author Yeng Pway Ngon’s final novel, The Colour Of Twilight, published by City Book Room.

The well-known poet, novelist and critic in the Chinese community died in 2021. In this work translated by Jeremy Tiang and set for release on Yeng’s death anniversary on Jan 10, an ageing Chinese-language writer who has devoted his life to literature questions his place in English-dominated, capitalist Singapore.

London-based literary agency New River Literary has already acquired translation rights for Yeng’s book outside Singapore, with the hope it will be given a new life with international readers.

Ethos Books has a robust slate of releases in 2026.

In February, writer-artist Diana Rahim promises to enlarge readers’ sense of the possible with her debut We Saw Mountains. Nine stories journeying from the desert to an oasis feature such nonhuman actors as a grieving elephant, while fully formed mountains appear overnight for this corrective to the current bleak times.

On Ethos Books’ book catalogue are also poet Theophilus Kwek’s meditation on the many lives of 331 North Bridge Road - movie theatre, postwar cabaret, rubber factory titled Odeon, released in August; and A People Of Salt And Light, O Thiam Chin’s four-hander romance set in 1915 Singapore, due out in October.

There is another translation: Chinese-language author and Cultural Medallion recipient Chia Joo Ming’s three works on the migration of Chinese into Nanyang and how this shaped Singapore and the region. These are no straightforward essays, but a curious blend of imagination and fact. They are compiled under the title Reimagin-ing Nanyang, slated for June, with translation work by Jack Hargreaves.