Ponti

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Review Remarkable . . . With brilliant descriptive power and human warmth, Sharlene Teo summons the darker currents of modernity . . . her characters glow with life and humour and minutely observed desperation (Ian McEwan)A radiant, achingly beautiful novel about relationships between women (Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From)A triumph: a nuanced examination of betrayal and grief, memory and the corrupting effects of beauty (Sunday Times)With its thoughtful plot and vibrant prose, Ponti is one of the more assured debuts I’ve read recently . . . Too many first novels coast along on a fad-like buzz rather than the promise of a genuine upward trajectory, but everything about Ponti suggests it’s the rare, real deal and Teo’s a writer we’ll be reading for many years to come. (Financial Times)An unforgettable story of female friendship (Elle Magazine)A vivid coming-of-age debut . . . Teo artfully collects various stories and rolls them into one seamless narrative . . . Teo is brilliant in her portrayal of teenage anxiety (Guardian)Every now and then, as a writer, you read a debut that feels so fully formed and on its feet, that part of you blanches at the failings of your own debut . . . Ponti is one of the most exciting books I have read in ages . . . There's something so effortless about Teo's prose, which captures Singapore from the late 1960s up to 2020. The book is as funny as it is strange, it is complex as it is light . . . Teo manages to spin the time period with ease and keep the reader utterly engrossed . . . Teo is an exciting author and Ponti is step one of a long illustrious career. It deserves prizes (Nikesh Shukla)A startlingly poetic and impressive debut (Independent)Witty, moving and richly evocative, Ponti paints a portrait of a country and a people negotiating the throes of modernity. It also announces a major talent ― Sharlene Teo has produced not just a singular debut, but a milestone in South East Asian literature (Tash Aw, author of Five Star Billionaire)This haunting debut hopscotches between decades and cultures, eschewing the usual moves of the coming-of-age story for something truer to the desperate, surreal stakes of adolescence. Sharlene Teo is a daring and genuinely original novelist (Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You) Book Description Set in Singapore, and spanning fifty years, Ponti is a sweeping story of three women and the guilt that ties them to each other. For fans of Zadie Smith and Elena Ferrante. From the Inside Flap 2003. Singapore. Friendless and fatherless, sixteen-year-old Szu lives in the shadow of her mother Amisa, once a beautiful actress and now a hack medium performing séances with her sister in a rusty house. When Szu meets the privileged, acid-tongued Circe, they develop an intense friendship which offers Szu an escape from her mother’s alarming solitariness, and Circe a step closer to the fascinating, unknowable Amisa.Seventeen years later, Circe is struggling through a divorce in fraught and ever-changing Singapore when a project comes up at work: a remake of the cult seventies horror film series ‘Ponti’, the very project that defined Amisa’s short-lived film career. Suddenly Circe is knocked off balance: by memories of the two women she once knew, by guilt, and by a past that threatens her conscience . . .Told from the perspectives of all three women, Ponti is an exquisite story of friendship and memory spanning decades. Infused with mythology and modernity, with the rich sticky heat of Singapore, it is at once an astounding portrayal of the gaping loneliness of teenagehood, and a vivid exploration of how tragedy can make monsters of us. From the Back Cover ‘Remarkable . . . her characters glow with life and humour and minutely observed desperation’ Ian McEwan About the Author Sharlene Teo was born in Singapore in 1987. She has an LLB in Law from the University of Warwick and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship and the David TK Wong Creative Writing award. She was shortlisted for the Berlin Writing Prize and holds fellowships from the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and the University of Iowa International Writing Program. In 2016, she won the inaugural Deborah Rogers Writer’s Award for Ponti, her first novel.