The Collected Short Stories of Gopal Baratham

About the Book

This exciting collection brings together thirty-nine of the late Dr. Gopal Baratham’s characteristic and revered pieces. In his usual blunt, strong and controversial style, Baratham’s socio-political critiques are ‘peopled’ by characters from virtually every background and class—with their frustrated hopes, wild illusions and excesses. Paired with a stylistic and evolving narrative voice, as seen in dialogue that fluctuates from poetic to quirky, this writer’s ambivalent medium is also his message. Readers are drawn into the depth of his work, and left with a sympathetic, sensitive understanding of events, people, actions and the complexities of relationships.


About the Author

The late Dr Gopal Baratham (1935–2002) was a proud Singaporean, a distinguished writer and a prominent neurosurgeon in about equal parts. He was born in the quiet of the mid-thirties, survived in the turmoil of the fifties and sixties and in the nineties, found the tranquillity for writing.


Considered a literary light during his lifetime, his oeuvre consists of five volumes of short stories, three novels and non-fiction book. His first book, A Candle or The Sun, won the Southeast Asia Write Award in 1991 and was short-listed for the Commonwealth Book Prize in 1992. One of the first Singapore writers to have their work published by an overseas publisher, his books also received much international praise.