Ministry of Moral Panic

Meet an over-the-hill pop ye-ye singer with a faulty heart; two conservative middle-aged women holding hands in the Galapagos, and the proprietor of a Laundromat with a penchant for Cantonese songs of heartbreak. Find out the truth about racial riot fodder-girl Maria Hertogh, now living out her days a chambermaid in Lake Tahoe; a mirage of the Merlion as a ladyboy working Orchard Towers; and high-stakes fantasy staring the still-suave lead of the 1990s TV hit serial, The Unbeatables. Ministry of Moral Panic is an extraordinary collection and the introduction of a revelatory new voice. Heartfelt and sexy, the stories of Amanda Lee Koe encompass a skewed world fraught with prestige anxiety, moral relativism, sexual frankness, and the improrable necessity of human connection. Told in strikingly original prose, these are stories that plough the possibilities of understanding Singapore and her denizens.