SINGAPORE – English writer Jeanette Winterson has been added to this year’s Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) line-up.

Fans will want to grab tickets to In A Tiny Room With: Jeanette Winterson for a close-up encounter. Among other works, the writer is famous for landmark novels on gender and sexuality which include Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985) and Written On The Body (1992). 

The festival, organised by Arts House Limited and commissioned by the National Arts Council, is on from Nov 4 to 20 this year.

The popular closing debate will this year open the festival instead. Debate veteran Adrian Tan will be joined by Oniatta Effendi, Petrina Kow, Shamini Flint, Amanda Chong, Rebekah Dorai, Jo Tan and Joshua Ip to debate the motion, This House Believes That The Remake Is Better Than The Original.

Closing the festival is a poetry reading ...Only to Arrive at the Same Place Together, featuring Caleb Femi, Bani Haykal, Joelle Taylor, Lawrence Ypil, Zeha and Nate Marshall.

There will be some 280 writers in this year’s festival, the theme of which is IF (JIKA, 若, எனில்), inspired by Cyril Wong’s poem, If... Else.

Headliners include science-fiction author Ted Chiang, poet Claudia Rankine and The New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino.

An exhibition on Malay female literary pioneers, spanning 19th-century Riau to the present day, will also be a highlight of the festival, which spans three weekends.

Book It/ Singapore Writers Festival

Where: The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane; satellite venues such as Victoria Theatre, 11 Empress Place, and National Library, 100 Victoria Street; and online
MRT: City Hall
When: Nov 4 to 20
Admission: Programmes are either free or ticketed. $30 for festival pass; $10 to $60 for separately ticketed programmes. Concessions, and discounts for early birds and festival pass holders, are also available.
Info: https://str.sg/wKWe