All-female S'pore gang Inspired fantasy novel

With a scarlet butterfly tattoo emblazoned on their upper thigh and an acid bomb in hand, gangsters of the Red Butterfly Gang - Singapore’s first all-women secret society — offered protection to sex workers for a fee and revenge-for-hire services for women with cheating spouses.

- Shawn Hoo

Writer Wen-yi Lee, 26, was not yet born when the gang prowled Sungei Road and made headlines in the 1950s and 1960s. But a history video a friend sent her on TikTok inspired her to drop a novel idea about samsui women - “it’s a bit Singapore Tourism Board and social studies,” Lee quips — and chase down these “morally grey” women in her newest historical fantasy novel.

“Our predominant image of Chinese secret societies is very masculine, brotherhood and male,” says Lee of why she wrote When They Burned The Butterfly, the first book in a duology sold for six figures to New York City-based Tor Books. It hits Singapore bookstores on Oct 21.

“The idea of a purely female gang was very compelling. How do they carve out their own space in this world? What does it look like when this power is adapted by women?” says Lee in an interview with The Sunday Times in Chinatown, which features prominently in the book. She, too, sports a butterfly tattoo on her left arm.

In 1972, as Singapore modernises and the edifice of People’s Park Complex rises in Chinatown, the government is cracking down on secret societies like the Crocodile and Three Steel gangs. When the reclusive Adeline Siow’s mother is suddenly killed, the loner schoolgirl is pulled into the world of the Red Butterfly Gang and discovers how she came to inherit the fire powers she was taught to suppress.