Book Launch: The Colour of Twilight by Yeng Pway Ngon

Book Launch: The Colour of Twilight by Yeng Pway Ngon

Date: 10th January 2026 (Saturday)

Time: 7 – 8.30 PM

Venue: The POD, National Library 100 Victoria St, level 16, Singapore 188064

Free Admission, pre-registration required.

Until his death in 2021, Yeng Pway Ngon was widely regarded as one of Singapore's most important Sinophone writers, having won the Singapore Literature Prize three times, among other honours. His final novel, The Colour of Twilight, meets readers in an English translation by Jeremy Tiang. The novel is an elegy –– for its protagonist, an ageing widower who wonders if he has wasted his life by devoting it to literature, and also for the traditions and community that have been swept away by the relentless capitalism and modernisation of Singapore.

Join us for the launch of the The Colour of Twilight, featuring a pre-recording by Jeremy Tiang, and a lively discussion moderated by Dr Chan Cheow Thia between veteran publisher Chan Wai Han, film critic Philip Cheah, and arts practitioner Tung Ka Wai. As dusk falls over the city-state, the three speakers will reflect on their encounters with the author and/or his works.

About the author

YENG PWAY NGON (1947-2021) received the Cultural Medallion for Literature in 2003. He published 31 volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, plays and literary criticism in Chinese. In 2013, he taught novel and short story writing at Nanyang Technological University's Chinese Language Department, under the Chinese Writing Residency Project. In the same year, he received the S.E.A.Write Award (Southeast Asian Writers Award). Yeng received the National Book Development Council's Book Award for 1987-88 and the Singapore Literature Prize in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. His poetry and novels have been translated into English and Italian.

About the translator

JEREMY TIANG is a novelist, playwright and the International Booker longlisted translator of over 30 books from Chinese, including Yeng Pway Ngon's previous novels Unrest and Costume. He is a two-time winner of the Singapore Literature Prize, for his translation of Zhang Yueran's Cocoon and for his novel State of Emergency; his short story collection It Never Rains on National Day was shortlisted for the same prize. His plays include Salesman之死 (Obie Award for Outstanding New Play), The Last Days of Limehouse and A Dream of Red Pavilions.